image: This is a fictitious view of the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope measuring the tunneling current from the second highest occupied molecular orbital of a single HCl molecule. While impossible with a conventional STM this has been realized using a circularly polarized, ultra intense laser pulses instead at the National Research Council in Canada. This image relates to an article that appeared in the Sept. 11, 2009, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. H. Akagi at University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and colleagues, was titled, "Laser Tunnel Ionization from Multiple Orbitals in HCl." view more
Credit: [Image courtesy of National Research Council of Canada]