Amazing!!! Electron Orbitals Photographed

Sorry, Ive looked around but i cant find the picture you lot are talking about (related to the topic starters first post).....

Sage
The day this thread was posted, it was the top news on the listed link and in google news. Now it is not, and it is a bit harder to find. Even more interesting though, if you google for "electron orbitals photographed", about all you find is a link to this thread!

I was going to "ding" you for the humor I see in the combination of your name, and not being able to find the link, but it took me a moment to locate it also. So I decided to give you a break. Besides, we geeks should help each other right?

Here is the link to the original article with the image

I noticed they reported that the electron was ionized away from the nitrogen molecule and then they measured the EM radiation it emitted as it returned to it's current state. That's very interesting, reminds me of a LASER.

This is a good step towards reaction monitoring also. It will still be a while before this technology will be available for industrial use.

I have the feeling that creating an image of the electron clouds of larger molecules will be much more difficult. Especially when you look at some of the transition metals that have more complexe electron clouds.

I dont think we will neccessarily see the basic s, p, d, f, etc. electron clouds, but we will probably see hybridized clouds such as the multiple sp hybrids in the p groups. This makes me wonder about the possiblilites of isolating electron clouds from other electron clouds, just think about the synthetic possibilities!