How polarons rapidly expand (IMAGE)

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

How polarons rapidly expand

Caption

As this animation shows, polaronic distortions start very small and rapidly expand outward in all directions to a diameter of about 5 billionths of a meter, which is about a 50-fold increase. This nudges about 10 layers of atoms slightly outward within a roughly spherical area over the course of tens of picoseconds, or trillionths of a second. These distortions were measured for the first time in lead hybrid perovskites with an X-ray free electron laser at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Credit

Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

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