Lasers and Matter...

Simulated valence-charge density from x-ray and optical wave mixing shows the nuclei of carbon atoms as dark spots revealed by diffracted x-rays and the peaks of some of the bonds between them as white and blue spots induced by the polarized optical pulse. In diamond, the optical pulse primarily wiggles the charge that makes up chemical bonds.

Light changes matter in ways that shape our world. Photons trigger changes in proteins in the eye to enable vision; sunlight splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and creates chemicals through photosynthesis; light causes electrons to flow in the semiconductors that make up solar cells; and new devices for consumers, industry, and medicine operate with photons instead of electrons. But directly measuring how light manipulates matter on the atomic scale has never been possible, until now.

An international team of scientists led by Thornton Glover of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to mix a pulse of superbright x-rays with a pulse of lower frequency, “optical” light from an ordinary laser. By aiming the combined pulses at a diamond sample, the team was able to measure the optical manipulation of chemical bonds in the crystal directly, on the scale of individual atoms.

The researchers report their work in the August 30, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory: Synchronized Lasers Measure How Light Changes Matter