Making the invisible visible

First author of the current study Tobias Helk (l.) and Dr Frederik Tuitje in a laser laboratory. Image: Jens Meyer (University of Jena) - International research team develops new method for studying atomic structures in material surfaces Light Researchers from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the University of California Berkeley and the Institut Polytechnique de Paris use intense laser light in the extreme ultraviolet spectrum to generate a non-linear optical process on a laboratory scale - a process which until now has only been possible in a large-scale research facility. As the team writes in the current issue of the journal "Science Advances", they were able to achieve this effect for the first time with a laser source on a laboratory scale and thus investigate the surface of a titanium sample down to the atomic level. Chemical reactions, such as those that occur when charging and discharging a battery, take place primarily on surfaces and at interfaces. While it is very easy to study the macroscopic products of a reaction, it has so far been difficult to gain a more accurate picture of the course of chemical reactions at the atomic level. This requires measurement methods that allow observations to be made on the extremely short time scales on which chemical reactions take place.