For the First Time, Scientists Watch Electrons Move in Real Time

Wednesday, August 4, 2010 - 16:28 in Physics & Chemistry

Watching Electrons Move In krypton's single ionization state, quantum oscillations in the valence shell cycled in a little over six femtoseconds. Attosecond laser pulses probed the details and sensed the changing degrees of coherence between the two quantum states. Berkeley Lab For the first time, scientists have been able to watch electrons move in an atom's outer shell, in a breakthrough with major implications for our understanding of chemical processes. Using ultra-short flashes of laser light, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., were able to time oscillations between valence electrons' quantum states. Chemical reactions happen because of the dynamics of valence electrons, the ones in the outermost orbit of an atom. If you can watch them move, you can understand their mechanics and learn how they combine with other atoms to make up everything around us. But electrons move...

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