Credit: Greg Stewart, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
X-ray free-electron laser experiments at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have given scientists their first detailed look at how charge transfer - a highly important process in all of chemistry - works in molecules called DMP, center. The molecules were hit with a light pulse to kick off the process, followed by an X-ray laser pulse to observe resulting changes in their structure over 3 trillionths of a second. The X-rays scatter off individual molecules and into a detector, creating patterns that show ultrafast movements of the atoms with atomic resolution. (Greg Stewart, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)