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Science 23 December 1988:
Vol. 242. no. 4886, pp. 1645 - 1653
DOI: 10.1126/science.242.4886.1645
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Articles

Laser Femtochemistry

Ahmed H. Zewail 1

1 Professor of chemistry at the Arthur Amos Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125

Femtochemistry is concerned with the very act of the molecular motion that brings about chemistry, chemical bond breaking, or bond formation on the femtosecond (10-15 second) time scale. With lasers it is now possible to record snapshots of chemical reactions with sub-angstrom resolution. This strobing of the transition-state region between reagents and products provides real time observations that are fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the chemical bond.


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