Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 14, 2026
05:45
Uncovering Hidden Dynamics of Natural Photonic Structures Using Holographic Imaging
Published on: March 31, 2022
3.1K
Observation of pendular butterfly Rydberg molecules
Thomas Niederprüm1, Oliver Thomas1,2, Tanita Eichert1
1Research Center OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Nature Communications
|October 6, 2016
Summary
Researchers observed exotic butterfly molecules, a type of Rydberg molecule, and controlled their properties like bond length using electric fields. These molecules exhibit unique electron positioning beyond the internuclear distance.
Area of Science:
- Quantum chemistry
- Molecular physics
- Chemical physics
Background:
- Rydberg molecules offer unique binding mechanisms for tunable molecular engineering.
- Butterfly molecules, a specific class of Rydberg molecules, are bound by electron-perturber scattering shape resonances.
Purpose of the Study:
- To report the observation of butterfly molecules.
- To demonstrate the engineering of butterfly molecule properties using electric fields.
Main Methods:
- Observation of exotic butterfly molecules.
- Application of small electric fields to manipulate molecular properties.
Main Results:
- Successfully engineered the bond length, vibrational state, angular momentum, and orientation of butterfly molecules.
- Observed counter-intuitive molecular structures with average electron positions beyond the internuclear distance due to variable bond length and giant dipole moments.
Conclusions:
- Butterfly molecules represent a novel platform for quantum chemistry due to their engineered properties.
- The observed electron positioning challenges conventional molecular orbital descriptions.
Related Concept Videos
01:09Torsional Pendulum
7.7K
A torsional pendulum involves the oscillation of a rigid body in which the restoring force is provided by the torsion in the string from which the rigid body is suspended. Ideally, the string should be massless; practically, its mass is much smaller than the rigid body's mass and is neglected.
As long as the rigid body's angular displacement is small, its oscillation can be modeled as a linear angular oscillation. The amplitude of the oscillation is an angle. The role of mass is played...
As long as the rigid body's angular displacement is small, its oscillation can be modeled as a linear angular oscillation. The amplitude of the oscillation is an angle. The role of mass is played...
7.7K
00:52¹H NMR of Conformationally Flexible Molecules: Temporal Resolution
1.4K
At room temperature, the chair conformer of cyclohexane undergoes rapid ring flipping between two equivalent chair conformers at a rate of approximately 105 times per second. These two chair conformers are in equilibrium. The rapid ring flipping results in the interconversion of the axial proton to an equatorial proton and an equatorial to the axial proton. Such interconversions are too rapid and cannot be detected on the NMR timescale. Hence, the NMR spectrometer cannot distinguish between the...
1.4K
02:32The de Broglie Wavelength
34.2K
In the macroscopic world, objects that are large enough to be seen by the naked eye follow the rules of classical physics. A billiard ball moving on a table will behave like a particle; it will continue traveling in a straight line unless it collides with another ball, or it is acted on by some other force, such as friction. The ball has a well-defined position and velocity or well-defined momentum, p = mv, which is defined by mass m and velocity v at any given moment. This is the typical...
34.2K
01:20Raman Spectroscopy: Overview
2.2K
The underlying principle of Raman spectroscopy is based on the interaction between light and matter, specifically molecules' inelastic scattering of photons. When a monochromatic beam of light, typically from a laser source, interacts with a sample, most scattered light has the same frequency as the incident light. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
However, a small fraction of the scattered light exhibits a frequency shift due to the exchange of energy between the incident photons and...
However, a small fraction of the scattered light exhibits a frequency shift due to the exchange of energy between the incident photons and...
2.2K
01:06Physical Pendulum
2.9K
When a rigid body is hanging freely from a fixed pivot point and is displaced, it oscillates similar to a simple pendulum and is known as a physical pendulum. The period and angular frequency of a physical pendulum are obtained by using the small-angle approximation and drawing parallels with a spring-mass system. The small-angle approximation (sinθ=θ) is valid up to about 14°.
When dealing with complicated systems, the mass moment of inertia is an important parameter, as it...
When dealing with complicated systems, the mass moment of inertia is an important parameter, as it...
2.9K
02:39Emission Spectra
77.4K
When solids, liquids, or condensed gases are heated sufficiently, they radiate some of the excess energy as light. Photons produced in this manner have a range of energies, and thereby produce a continuous spectrum in which an unbroken series of wavelengths is present.
77.4K