It has a shutter speed of one trillionth of a second.
An international team of researchers has developed a new type of camera that can see atomic disorder. To observe the movement of the disordered atomic clusters, the device employs a variable shutter speed. When the team used a slow shutter, the dynamic clutter faded away, but when they used a shutter speed of around one picosecond, one trillionth (one million million) of a second, they were able to see it. The device is very useful for materials science, communicated this Tuesday.
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dynamic disorder
The new method, which they call the “variable shutter for atomic pair distribution function” (vsPDF), doesn’t work like a conventional camera that uses photons to photograph, but instead uses neutrons from a particle source. This ultra-fast shutter speed system provides much more insight into what happens with dynamic disorder, when groups of atoms oscillate in a material in specific ways for a set period of time when stimulated by vibration or a change in temperature.
‘Only with this new vsPDF tool can we really see this side of the materials,’ commented lead researcher Simon Billinge, a professor at Columbia University, USA. Combining the possibilities of varying shutter speed, as well as a shuttering power of a trillionth of a second, proved vital in distinguishing dynamic disorder from static disorder (the normal movement of atoms in place that does not enhance the function of a material).
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“It gives us a whole new way to unravel the intricacies of what happens in complex materials, the hidden effects that can enhance their properties. With this technique, we will be able to look at a material and see which atoms are in the ‘dance’ and which are not,” Billinge explained.
its development
The authors believe that, with further development of this technology, it might be used in many material systems where atomic dynamics are important, from observing lithium moving on battery electrodes to studying the dynamics of processes during the photolysis of water. . “We anticipate that the vsPDF technique described here will become a standard tool for reconciling local and average structures in energetic materials,” they write in their paper. published recently in Nature Materials.
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