Credit: Image courtesy of Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin/SciStyle, Thomas Splettstößer
The benchmark catalyst Fe(CO)5 is irradiated with ultraviolet light, causing it to lose one of its five carbon monoxide groups. The resulting reaction is probed with a soft x-ray source that provides information about chemical dynamics at an atom-specific level with femtosecond or quadrillionths of a second resolution.