Metronome enables slow-motion view of atoms

Utilizing a laser metronome that keeps stroke to 10 quintillionth of a second, scientists from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL), Hamburg, Germany, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, are able to view slow-motion pictures from the world of molecules and atoms.

Optical lasers are used to synchronize free-electron lasers.

The metronome, an ultrashort pulse laser, is said to be the world's most precise clock generator on short-time scales, and it is expected to help scientists gain new insights into the movement of electrons in molecules and atoms, reported the CFEL and MIT research team in a recent news release about the development. The CFEL and MIT researchers are part of a joint venture with the DESY research center in Hamburg, the German Max Planck Society and the University of Hamburg.

"That is about the time an electron needs for orbiting a hydrogen nucleus or for the electric charge to move through a molecule during photosynthesis,"  explained Franz X. Kärtner, the lead researcher and a DESY scientist.