Mapping Shape and Dynamics of Molecule's Outer Electron Cloud Now Possible Using Novel Experimental Technique

The chemistry between atoms and molecules is strongly determined by their outer electron orbitals, or clouds, which participate in chemical processes. A team from three Japanese research institutes has now developed a method that can measure the three-dimensional shape and dynamics of an electron cloud. "The shape of an electron cloud is at the heart of intermolecular interactions that lead to beautiful chemistry," comments Toshinori Suzuki from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako, who led the research team.

Measuring the dynamics of an electron cloud is challenging because molecules in gases and liquids always move randomly; this makes it difficult to take a ‘snapshot’ of movement averaged over many molecules at a specific moment in time. However, the excitation of nitric oxide (NO) by a polarized laser beam can align those molecules along one axis, so that the measurement of their outer electron cloud becomes possible.