In order to take a picture of something as small as an individual molecule, researchers have to get creative. Using an indirect technique to record how the subject behaves when a beam of particles are dispersed around the object. Working backward, the researchers can then decipher what the original object looked like.
The sophisticated equipment used to take pictures of these molecules is the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) that’s housed at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. As described in their paper published in the journal Nature, the behavior the researchers observed when beams of charged electrons were focused onto tiny targets, was like “a molecular black hole.” As the electrons bounce off the molecules they give away clues as to their structure and happens just before the sample is destroyed by the beam’s intense energy. This is something the researchers call “diffraction before distraction.”
During their experiments, the researchers observed something unexpected. The innermost electrons of the atoms were stripped away by the intenseness of the beam. As a result, a very strong positive charge was created which sucked in the rest of the surrounding electrons as well as stealing some from other atoms. This kind of electron stealing doesn’t usually happen in nature and is simply because the forces at work are so great. The researchers describe the process as similar to that of a black hole when it consumes a star.
“When we have really, really intense X-rays like we do there are enough X-rays that you knock out one electron and before there’s time for recombination you knock off another and then knock off another and so on and so forth,” says Sebastien Boutet, LCLS staff scientists and co-author of the study. “What that ends up doing is stripping most of the inner shells and then that very highly charged molecule unexpectedly sucked in a bunch of electrons from neighboring atoms as a consequence.”
While the molecular black hole isn’t quite the same as a cosmic black hole in terms of how it woks, the observed effect is still similar and by understanding how beams interact with molecules this tiny will help with further research and being able to fine-tune any images.
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