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Article: Good timing. (measurement of chemical bond formation in a liquid)
- Article from:
- Chemistry and Industry
- Article date:
- May 17, 1993
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Society of Chemical Industry. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Scientists in the US believe they are the first to measure precisely how long it takes for a chemical bond to form in a liquid. Their success brings the goal of molecular level engineering a few steps closer.
Ara Apkarian's team at the University of California, Irvine, found that it takes 330 femtoseconds -- a femtosecond is a trillionth of a second -- for a bond to form between xenon chloride and a xenon atom (Chemical Physics Letters, 1993, 206, 475-82). As bond formation times go this is a relatively short one, says Apkarian. If hydrogen was used instead of xenon, the process would take around 30 femtoseconds and would be impossible to measure.
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