The coldest chemistry
Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 18:20
in Physics & Chemistry
Chemical reactions tend to slow down as temperature is lowered, but this isn't always true. Researchers have shown that chemical reactions can continue even at temperatures just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. In recent experiments, they took diatomic potassium and rubidium molecules, each in their ground states (lowest-possible energy), and found that when mixed, the molecules dissociated and combined into KRb -- molecules with one potassium and one rubidium atom.