Light-driven molecular swing

Scientists have used ultrashort laser pulses to make the atoms of molecules vibrate and have gained a precise understanding of the dynamics of energy transfer

20-Oct-2022 - When light impinges on molecules, it is absorbed and re-emitted. Advances in ultrafast laser technology have steadily improved the level of detail in studies of such light-matter interactions. FRS, a laser spectroscopy method in which the electric field of laser pulses repeating millions of times ...

Molecules Brilliantly Illuminated

25-Apr-2018 - Molecules are the building blocks of life. Like all other organisms, we are made of them. They control our biorhythm, and they can also reflect our state of health. Researchers at the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) – a joint venture between Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) and the ...

A Keen Sense for Molecules

27-Feb-2018 - Laser physicists from the Laboratory of Attosecond Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have developed an extremely powerful broadband infrared light source. This light source opens up a whole new range of opportunities in medicine, life ...

Electric current at record speed

Scientists have generated the fastest electric current that has ever been measured inside a solid material

27-Oct-2016 - In the field of electronics, the principle 'the smaller, the better' applies. Some building blocks of computers or mobile phones, however, have become nearly as small today as only a few atoms. It is therefore hardly possible to reduce them any further. Another factor for the performance of ...

Quantum matter without memory loss

MPQ scientists obtain evidence of many-body localization in a closed quantum system

08-Jul-2016 - During equilibration ordinary many-body systems lose all information about the initial state. Every morning we experience an example for this behaviour. Milk poured into a cup of coffee mixes perfectly and after some time it is impossible to say how exactly the two fluids were put together. The ...

Laser-based molecular fingerprinting

24-Sep-2015 - Researchers and regulators in many fields often need to detect and measure levels of specific substances in a sea of irrelevant molecules, and infrared light offers an ideal tool for this task. Infrared radiation is invisible to the human eye, but molecules react with mid-infrared light in ways ...

Light waves allow preferred bond breaking in symmetric molecules

Selectively shaking and breaking C-H bonds in symmetric hydrocarbon molecules with the waveform of femtosecond laser pulses

20-May-2014 - Chemical bonds between carbon and hydrogen atoms are amongst the strongest in nature and their selective breaking, in particular in symmetric molecules, is of interest to chemical synthesis and the development of new biologically active molecules. An international team of scientists has now ...

Single atoms for detecting extremely weak forces

MPQ-scientists demonstrate that due to synchronisation atoms can be influenced by forces as weak as 5 yoctonewton

06-Aug-2010 - Back in the 17th century the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens made the observation that the oscillation of two pendulums synchronize once they get under mutual influence. This holds for even very loose coupling, for instance, when both pendulums are mounted onto the same wall. Interestingly, a ...

How small is the proton?

International team of researchers observes unexpectedly small proton radius in a precision laser experiment with exotic hydrogen atoms

12-Jul-2010 - The proton - one of the universal building-blocks of all matter - is even smaller than had previously been assumed. This is the result obtained at the Paul-Scherrer-Institut (PSI) in Villigen (Switzerland) by an international research team, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute of ...

Electrons are late starters

02-Jul-2010 - When physicists search for new semiconductors for chips or lasers, they have been able to rely on sophisticated computer programs - until now. However, it is possible that the models these programs have used to predict the electronic properties of a material oversimplify reality. An international ...