Shooting a movie in the lab requires special equipment. Especially when the actors are molecules -- invisible to the naked eye -- reacting with each other. 'Imagine trying to film tiny lava flows during a volcanic eruption. Your smartphone camera wouldn't be up to the job.
But the effort is worth it -- particularly when the product of the reaction is a promising energy material: so-called covalent organic frameworks . Still quite young, this material class has great potential for applications in battery technology and the manufacture of hydrogen. But despite 20 years of intensive research, scientists have been unable to fully elucidate what actually happens during the synthesis of COFs. As such, materials are often developed by trial and error.
For the film shoot with the molecular stars, Gruber used a special microscope. With this tool, the team managed to follow the formation mechanism of the COFs at the nano level. The LMU researchers recently published their groundbreaking results in the journal, accompanied by a video showing the processes that occur during synthesis in real time.
Constructing a tiny robot from DNA and using it to study cell processes invisible to the naked eye... You would be forgiven for thinking it is science fiction, but it is in fact the subject of ...