Atoms Receive 'Movie Star' Treatment

Roland Piquepaille writes "A news release from the University of Toronto (U of T) says that a team of chemists has successfully captured images of atoms during the melting of aluminum. "Chemists at the University of Toronto have captured atom-scale images of the melting process-revealing the first images of the transition of a solid into a liquid at the timescale of femtoseconds, or millionths of a billionth of a second. The result is an unprecedented "movie" detailing the melting process as solid aluminum becomes a liquid." Can this be useful for you? Probably not. But these chemists think they have a new valuable tool which will allow them to make atomic movies of other chemical reactions. This summary contains more details and additional references."