Researchers at Ohio State University and Kansas State University have captured the first-ever images of atoms moving in a molecule. Shown here is molecular nitrogen. The researchers used an ultrafast laser to knock one electron from the molecule, and recorded the diffraction pattern that was created when the electron scattered off the molecule. The image highlights any changes the molecule went through during the time between laser pulses: one quadrillionth of a second. The constituent atoms’ movement is shown as a measure of increasing angular momentum, on a scale from dark blue to pink, with pink showing the region of greatest momentum. – Image courtesy of Cosmin Blaga, Ohio State University.

PARIS: Scientists on Wednesday said they had recorded the first real-time images of atoms moving in a molecule, a feat that captured movement lasting less than one millionth of a billionth of a second.

The exploit entailed directing an ultra-fast laser onto molecules of nitrogen and of oxygen. Its pulse of light knocked a single electron out of its orbit around one of the atoms.

The electron tumbled back onto the molecule, causing a tiny collision that, like ripples in a pond, proved a “backlight” of energy. Sensors picked up a movement of joined atoms vibrating.

The research, published in the journal Nature, was headed by Louis DiMauro, a professor of physics of Ohio State University.

The molecules that were studied are very simple -- oxygen and nitrogen make up most of the atmosphere -- but the hope is to progress to imaging of more interesting fare.

Drug designers could be among the beneficiaries.

“You could use this to study individual atoms,” DiMauro said in a press release.

“But the greater impact to science will come when we can study reactions between more complex molecules. Looking at two atoms -- that's a long way from studying a more interesting molecule like a protein.”In a separate technical breakthrough, also reported in Nature, physicists at CERN used microwaves to manipulate “anti-matter” atoms, once a staple of sci-fi but now one of the big frontiers of particle research.

In theory, there should be equal amounts of matter and its opposite, known as anti-matter, as a result of the Big Bang that created the cosmos.

But clearly there is not, otherwise the physical Universe would not exist. When a matter atom meets an anti-matter atom, they cancel each other out in a burst of energy. So, for some reason, there is a far greater abundance of matter than anti-matter. Scientists poring over this mystery have laboured to find out more about elusive anti-matter atoms.

In recent years, they have isolated anti-atoms and then stored them -- but handling them is a fiendishly hard task, given the risk of destroying them through mere contact.

The latest achievement, led by the so-called ALPHA team at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, entailed confining antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap and bombarding them with microwaves.

The energy kick forced the atoms out of the trap, providing some vital clues about their properties -- an “anti-atomic fingerprint,” in the scientists' words.