Ultrafast optical fiber-based electron gun to reveal atomic motionsOne of the most enduring &ldq
Ultrafast optical fiber-based electron gun to reveal atomic motionsOne of the most enduring “Holy Grail” experiments in science has been attempts to directly observe atomic motions during structural changes. This prospect underpins the entire field of chemistry because a chemical process occurs during a transition state—the point of no return separating the reactant configuration from the product configuration.What does that transition state look like and, given the enormous number of different possible nuclear configurations, how does a system even find a way to make it happen?Now in the journal Applied Physics Letters, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter are reporting “ultrabright” electron sources with sufficient brightness to literally light up atomic motions in real time—at a time scale of 100 femtoseconds, making these sources particularly relevant to chemistry because atomic motions occur in that window of time.After seeing the first atomic movies of phase transitions in bulk thin films using high-energy (100 kilovolt) electron bunches, the researchers wondered if they could achieve atomic resolution of surface reactions—occurring within the first few monolayers of materials—to gain a better understanding of surface catalysis.Read more. -- source link
#materials science#science#fiber optics#electrons#structures#materials characterization#phase transitions#surfaces