image: In this illustration, an infrared laser beam (orange) triggers atomic vibrations in a thin layer of iron selenide, which are then recorded by ultrafast X-ray laser pulses (white) to create an ultrafast movie. The motion of the selenium atoms (red) changes the energy of the electron orbitals of the iron atoms (blue), and the resulting electron vibrations are recorded separately with a technique called ARPES (not shown). The coupling of atomic positions and electronic energies is much stronger than previously thought and may significantly impact the material's superconductivity. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the July 7, 2017, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by S. Gerber at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., and colleagues was titled, "Femtosecond electron-phonon lock-in by means of photoemission and x-ray free-electron laser." view more
Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory