Record ionization: X-ray laser removes more than two shells from electron cloud surrounding noble gas atoms
(Phys.org)—Atoms have been thoroughly researched, but they are still good for a surprise. Researchers of the Max Planck Advanced Study Group (ASG) at the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) have now produced atoms of the noble gas xenon with an extraordinarily high charge. With only one flash of the world's most powerful X-ray laser, an international team headed by Daniel Rolles ejected 36 electrons from a xenon atom and thus stripped the atom of more than two of its highest energy shells. This record charge significantly surpasses the greatest possible ionization which the physicists estimated for the X-ray energy used. This only becomes possible due to a resonance effect, which the team discovered. In the future, researchers will have to take into account these results when they use the extremely powerful pulses to bombard proteins or other biomolecules, for example, whose structure can only be clarified with the...