Image or mirror image? Chiral recognition by femtosecond laser
Friday, March 9, 2012 - 10:50
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- It is not always easy to distinguish between images and mirror images of molecules, but this knowledge is important when one image of a molecule is a drug and the mirror image is toxic. One new approach to this may be chiral recognition in the gas phase. This involves using synchrotron radiation (highly energetic photons from a particle accelerator) to eject electrons from the molecules and analyzing their trajectories. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, German researchers have now demonstrated that such experiments also work with a compact laser system.