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Exploring the mystery of molecular nature in nature, scientists have proposed a new experimental scheme to create custom mirror molecules for analysis. The technique can make ordinary molecules turn so fast that they lose their usual symmetry and shape to form mirror versions of each other. The research team of DESY, the University of Hamburg and University College London around the group leader, Jochen Küpper, describes this innovative method in the journal Letters of physical examination. Further exploration of the manual nature or chirality (from the ancient Greek word cheir, "cheir"), not only improves understanding of the functioning of nature, but could also pave the way for new materials and methods .
Like your hands, many molecules in nature exist in two versions that are inverted images of each other. "For reasons unknown, life as we know it on Earth prefers almost exclusively left-handed proteins, while the genome is organized as the famous right-handed double helix," explains Andrey Yachmenev, who directs this theoretical work in the Küpper group. of the Center. for free electron laser science (CFEL). "For more than a century, researchers have unveiled the secrets of this natural nature, which not only affects the living world: mirror versions of certain molecules alter chemical reactions and alter the behavior of materials." For example, the right version of the caravone (CtenH14O) gives cumin its distinctive taste, while the left-handed version is a key factor for the taste of spearmint.
Labor, or chirality, appears naturally only in certain types of molecules. "However, it can be artificially induced in so-called symmetrical top molecules," says co-author Alec Owens of the Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI). "If these molecules are agitated rather quickly, they lose their symmetry and form two mirror forms, according to their direction of rotation.However, we know very little about this rotation-induced chirality phenomenon because there is practically no schema to generate it, this can be followed experimentally ".
The Küpper team has now developed a computer-based way to achieve this rotational-induced chirality with realistic parameters in the laboratory. It uses laser pulses in the shape of a corkscrew, called optical centrifuges. For the example of phosphine (PH3) their quantum calculations show that, at rotational speeds of billions of times per second, the phosphorus-hydrogen bond around which the molecule rotates is shorter than the other two of these bonds, and in the direction of rotation, two forms chiral phosphine emerge. "By using a powerful static electric field, it is possible to select the left or right version of the rotating phosphine," explains Yachmenev. "To achieve the super-fast unidirectional rotation, the corkscrew laser needs to be fine tuned, but on realistic parameters."
This scheme promises a completely new way through the mirror in the world of mirrors, because it would work in principle also with other heavier molecules. In reality, they would require laser pulses and weaker electric fields, but they were simply too complex to be solved during these early stages of the investigation. However, since phosphine is highly toxic, such heavier and slower molecules would probably be preferred for experiments.
The proposed method could provide tailor – made mirror molecules, and the study of their interactions with the environment, for example with polarized light, should allow to further unravel the mysteries of human nature and to make it easier. Küpper, also a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Hamburg said: "In doing so, a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of tolerance could also contribute to the development of molecules and materials. based on tailored chirality, new states of matter and the potential use of rotational chirality in new metamaterials or optical devices. "
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Material provided by Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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