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Article: Laser links segue to chemical bonds.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- May 20, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Science Service, Inc. 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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The light touch of a laser beam can shackle microscopic particles together to make an unusual form of matter. Now, a team of Tennessee researchers finds that this optical binding can set the stage for a chemical encore.
In the late 1980s, scientists at the Rowland Institute for Science and Harvard University, both in Cambridge, Mass., used lasers to create neat arrays of micrometer-size polystyrene beads held together, in part, by photon exchanges. Their new form of matter made headlines but inspired few further studies (SN: 9/30/89, p. 212; 8/18/90, p. 101).
More than a decade later, Andrey Zavalin and Don O. Henderson of Fisk University in Nashville ...