Cécile Exertier, of the Department of Biochemical Sciences "Alessandro Rossi Fanelli" is among the researchers of the study published in the journal Nature Chemistry about the revolutionary measurements carried out with the Free-Electron Laser (X-FEL) at Stanford University (USA).

This super-advanced instrument can observe the electrons and atoms that make up matter in real time on a scale of one-tenth of a millionth of a billionth of a second (100 femtoseconds), paving the way for numerous developments in the control of materials using light.

 In the system studied by the team, photo-induced electron transfer was observed in the process of magnetising materials. The experiments showed that light triggers the ultrafast distortion of the molecular structure of cobalt atoms. This leads to the transfer of iron atoms to cobalt atoms, thus making the system magnetic.

The international collaboration behind these results involved several Institutions, such as the French National Research Council, the University of Rennes, the Institute for Molecular Chemistry and Materials in Orsay (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay), the Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry in Bordeaux, France, and the Lebanese German University (LGU) in Lebanon. Two young Sapienza researchers contributed to the study, Cécile Exertier, selected by the University project SAPIExcellence in February 2019 and among the most competitive researchers worldwide, and Matilde Trabuco, PhD student of the Department of Biochemical Sciences A. Rossi Fanelli. Both researchers are involved in the Horizon2020 ITN X-Probe project.

References:

Charge-transfer driven by ultrafast spin-transition in a CoFe Prussian blue analogue - Marco Cammarata, Serhane Zerdane, Lodovico Balducci, Giovanni Azzolina, Sandra Mazerat, Cecile Exertier, Matilde Trabuco, Matteo Levantino, Roberto Alonso-Mori, James M. Glownia, Sanghoon Song, Laure Catala, Talal Mallah, Samir F. Matar, Eric Collet - Nature Chemistry DOI :  10.1038/s41557-020-00597-8