Hundreds of Lines Form a Molecular Movie (IMAGE)
Caption
This image contains hundreds of images, or frames, of a "molecular movie" made with an X-ray free-electron laser at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It reveals how simple iodine molecules respond in sometimes unexpected ways when hit with two photons of light at once, a novel approach that scientists say should work for larger and more complex molecules, too. Each image represents a single diffraction pattern made by X-rays scattering off atoms in a single molecule, and appears as a thin horizontal line, just one pixel deep. As you look at a single color band from bottom to top, subtle variations in the lines reveal how the positions of the molecules' atoms shifted back and forth many times per picosecond, or trillionth of a second.
Credit
(Bucksbaum group/PULSE Institute
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