Atomes et molécules: une première!

Mes connaissances dans le domaine sont si limitées que je ne peux que m'émerveiller! "There’s never been a better time to be in the molecular imagery business. On the heels of IBM’s announcement in late February that it managed to get the first-ever images of an electrical charge distribution throughout a molecule, scientists at Ohio State University and the Kansas State University announced this week that they’d gone one step further and snapped the first ever pictures of atoms moving in a single molecule.

 Specifically, the scientists managed to get images of atoms vibrating in oxygen and nitrogen molecules by shooting laser pulses at them and knocking one of each of their electrons out of orbit. When the electron fell back into the molecule, it scattered off its ions similar to the way a flash scatters light off of the subject of a photo, allowing researchers to record the atoms vibrating. The team published their findings in the journal Nature on March 7.

However, as one of the paper’s authors, OSU post-doc Cosmin Blaga, told TPM, the actual technique used has been around for quite some time.

“As is often the case in science, most ideas float around before a discovery is made,” Blaga said in an email. “The rescattering mechanism was well known since early 90s. People knew that electrons scatter on their parent ions.”"

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/how-scientists-snapped-the-first-images-of-atoms-vibrating-in-a-molecule.php?ref=fpnewsfeed