Team of prof. Vartkess A. Apkarian developed a technology to see atomic reactions in real time. Apkarian does his studies at the university of California, Irvine, where he leads the Center for Chemical Innovation on Chemistry at the Space-Time Limit (CaSTL).
To see what happens within a molecular and atomic reaction, scientists have used scanning tunneling microscopy, coupled with ultrafast nonlinear optical (NLO) spectroscopy, which uses nonlinear optic effects for scanning.
Some of those photo induced force microscopes have already been commercialized. A company called Molecular Vista, closely associated with CaSTL, already manufactures them. In longer term, scientists want to make these microscopes more user-friendly.
Technology of Apkarian and partners can focus the light down to one angstrom. This is 0.1 nanometers, which is thousand times smaller than the wavelength of light in visible spectrum, and comparable to diameters of a single atom. For comparison, Bohr radius (named after Niels Bohr), a distance between the nucleus and the electron in an atom of hydrogen (the smallest of atoms), is estimated at 0.5 angstrom.
“We can see how single molecules change structure, react to each other, break and make bonds. All in real time and space,” said Apkarian.
His team not only provides microscopes for research, but also does some of its own. Some of it focuses on optical methods to embed and read information in small particles, which is thus related to quantum computing.
CaSTL has been collaborating with colleagues from Armenia, namely the laboratory of ultra-fast optics at the Yerevan State University. “And there have been quite a few postgraduates from Armenia in my lab,” Apkarian added.
