Photochemistry articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    Chemical reactions are usually described in terms of the movement of nuclei between the potential energy surfaces of ground and excited electronic states. Crossings known as conical intersections permit efficient transitions between the surfaces. It is shown here that ultrafast optical spectroscopy, with sub-20-fs time resolution and spectral coverage from the visible to the near-infrared, can map the isomerization of rhodopsin with sufficient resolution to shown that a conical intersection is important in this crucial event in vision.

    • Dario Polli
    • , Piero Altoè
    •  & Giulio Cerullo
  • Letter |

    For several years, researchers have aspired to record in situ images of a quantum fluid in which each underlying quantum particle is detected. This goal has now been achieved: here, fluorescence imaging is reported of strongly interacting bosonic Mott insulators in an optical lattice, with single-atom and single-site resolution. The approach opens up new avenues for the manipulation, analysis and applications of strongly interacting quantum gases on a lattice.

    • Jacob F. Sherson
    • , Christof Weitenberg
    •  & Stefan Kuhr
  • Letter |

    Phytochromes regulate numerous photoresponses in plants and microorganisms through their ability to photointerconvert between a red-light-absorbing, ground state (Pf) and a far-red-light-absorbing, photoactivated state (Pfr). The structures of several phytochromes as Pf have been determined previously; here, the three-dimensional solution structure of the bilin-binding domain as Pfr is described. The results shed light on the structural basis for photoconversion to the activated Pfr form.

    • Andrew T. Ulijasz
    • , Gabriel Cornilescu
    •  & Richard D. Vierstra