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An ultrafast X-ray source in a laboratory format

CF4
Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Geneva have succeeded for the first time in using a laboratory X-ray source to demonstrate how two highly fluorinated molecules change within a few quadrillionths of a second, or femtoseconds.

In nature, some processes occur so quickly that even the blink of an eye is very slow in comparison. Many basic physical, chemical and biological reactions take place on the ultrafast time scale of a few femtoseconds (10−15 s) or even attoseconds (10−18 s). In molecules, elementary particles, such as electrons or photons, move in a mere 100 attoseconds (10−16 s). When electrons in a molecule jump from one atom to another, chemical bonds dissolve and new ones arise within a fraction of a femtosecond. The ability to track processes of this kind on the atomic scale in real time is one of the key reasons for development of major new research facilities such as the SwissFEL free electron laser. Now, researchers from the ETH Zurich and the University of Geneva have found a way to study ultrafast processes of this kind in the laboratory, using a soft X-ray source.

Reference: Pertot, Y., C. Schmidt, M. Matthews, A. Chauvet, M. Huppert, V. Svoboda, A. von Conta, A. Tehlar, D. Baykusheva, J.-P. Wolf and H. J. Wörner (2017). Time-resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy with a water window high-harmonic source. Science. (10.1126/science.aah6114) Pertot-2017 (1.13 MB)

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Download Pertot-2017.pdf (1.13 MB)
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