Science Highlights

14 January 2020

Unique insight in the evolution of molecules in interstellar space

Unique insight in the evolution of molecules in interstellar space more »
25 November 2019

Buckyballs in space – The IR spectrum of protonated buckminsterfullerene C60H+

Although fullerenes have long been hypothesized to occur in interstellar environments, their actual unambiguous spectroscopic identification is of more recent date.FELIX researchers have recorded ... more »
01 October 2016

FLASH observes exploding xenon nanoparticles

30 August 2016

Shape of ‘molecular graphene’ determines electronic properties

Infrared spectroscopic studies reveal electronic differences in polycyclic hydrocarbons with zigzag and armchair edge structures Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) form an important class of ... more »
09 June 2016

Infrared ion spectroscopy, another dimension in mass spectrometry

Infrared ion spectroscopy, another dimension in mass spectrometry: application to the structural characterization of ETD generated peptide fragments more »
03 July 2014

Scientists watch molecular footballs explode

Using intense X-ray flashes, scientists have watched tiny molecular footballs explode. The molecules called buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs for short are made of 60 carbon atoms and ... more »
18 June 2014

X-rays probe structure of liquid water at minus 46 degrees

Using the world's strongest X-ray laser, an international team of scientists has probed the internal structure of super-cooled liquid water at minus 46 degrees Celsius for the first time. The ... more »
09 May 2014

Delayed explosion due to cluster shell

Violent forces are at work during research with free-electron lasers: every single light flash brings the analysed sample to a fast explosion. In the investigation, every femtosecond (a millionth ... more »
08 May 2014

Observing electron clouds, scientists could improve chemical processes

With the help of an X-ray laser, a team of international researchers—including scientists from European XFEL, a new major science facility in the Hamburg metropolitan area, DESY, and the Max ... more »
08 May 2014

Peptides imaged in unprecedented detail in Radboud laser lab

Chemists from Radboud University Nijmegen and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) have succeeded in producing detailed 3D structures of selected peptides – the building blocks ... more »
06 March 2014

Observed live with x-ray laser: electricity controls magnetism

Data on a hard drive is stored by flipping small magnetic domains. Researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have now changed the magnetic arrangement in a material much ... more »
28 February 2014

Molecular Ballet under the X-ray Laser

Researchers capture snapshots of free molecules by the light of the free electron laser An international team of researchers has used the world’s most powerful X-ray laser to take snapshots of ... more »
15 February 2014

Novel method opens new paths for experiments with heated samples of biological relevance

Scientists from the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) have devised a novel way to boil water in less than a trillionth of a second. The theoretical concept, which has not yet ... more »