Filming the film: Scientists observe photographic exposure live at the nanoscale
Photoinduced chemical reactions are responsible for many fundamental processes and technologies, from energy conversion in nature to micro fabrication by photo-lithography. One process that is known from everyday's life and can be observed by the naked eye, is the exposure of photographic film. At DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III, scientists have now monitored the chemical processes during a photographic exposure at the level of individual nanoscale grains in real-time. The advanced experimental method enables the investigation of a broad variety of chemical and physical processes in materials with millisecond temporal resolution, ranging from phase transitions to crystal growth. The research team lead by Prof. Jianwei (John) Miao from the University of California in Los Angeles and Prof. Tim Salditt from the University of Göttingen report their technique and observations in the journal Nature Materials.