Hydrogen Molecule Nuclei Image Is Obtained

TIME AND SPACE

One of the many snapshots that the physicists took of the heavy hydrogen molecule. Each dot in the image represents a specific angle between laser polarisation and the molecular axis and a specific distance to the deuterium nuclei. The constellations marked in red occur more frequently. Credit: Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics

by Staff Writers
UPI Correspondent
Heidelberg, Germany (UPI) Nov 09, 2006
German researchers have, for the first time, visualized vibration and rotation in the nuclei of a hydrogen molecule as a quantum mechanical wave packet. The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg "photographed" the molecule using intensive, ultrashort laser pulses at different points and compiled a film from the separate images.

Since a hydrogen molecule is about 5,000 times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, it is impossible to create an optical image by photographing it. Instead, Max Planck researchers used pump-probe technology to make high-resolution and ultrahigh-speed images. The molecules are "bumped" with a "pump" laser pulse and measured with a "probe" laser pulse.

Using the technique, the scientists created the first complete image of the dynamic of one of the fastest molecular systems over a previously unachieved short time scale.

In the future, researchers say they will model the pump laser pulse to create a wave packet so certain quantum mechanical processes take place in preference to others.

The research appears in the online edition of Physical Review Letters.

Source: United Press International

TIME AND SPACE

Physicists Observe New Property of Matter

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 06, 2006
Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have for the first time observed the spontaneous production of coherence within "excitons," the bound pairs of electrons and holes that enable semiconductors to function as novel electronic devices.

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