Optical spectroscopy articles within Nature

Featured

  • Obituary |

    Chemist who enabled mass spectrometry to weigh up biology.

    • Carol V. Robinson

  • News Feature |

    Japanese hospitals are using near-infrared imaging to help diagnose psychiatric disorders. But critics are not sure the technique is ready for the clinic.

    • David Cyranoski

  • Letter |

    Electron microscopy has advanced to the stage where individual elements can be identified with atomic resolution. Here it is shown to be possible to get fine-structure spectroscopic information of individual light atoms such as those of carbon, and so also probe their chemical state. This capability is illustrated by investigating the edges of a graphene sample, where it is possible to discriminate between single-, double- and triple-coordinated carbon atoms.

    • Kazu Suenaga
    •  & Masanori Koshino

  • News & Views |

    Labelling molecules by fast oxidation allows mass spectrometry to study protein folding at submillisecond time resolution. The method also brings a wealth of structural information about protein folding within reach.

    • Martin Gruebele

  • Letter |

    Until now, the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxies known in the Universe were at redshifts of z = 8.2 and z = 6.96. It is now reported that the galaxy UDFy-38135539 is at a redshift of z = 8.5549 ± 0.0002. The finding has implications for our understanding of the timing, location and nature of the sources responsible for reionization of the Universe after the Big Bang.

    • M. D. Lehnert
    • , N. P. H. Nesvadba
    •  & S. Basa

  • Letter |

    In graphene, two particular sets of electrons exist that have a fourfold energy degeneracy. To study the corresponding four quantum states comprising a Landau level, these authors perform measurements on epitaxial graphene at 10 millikelvin. They take spectral 'fingerprints' of the Landau levels, showing in detail how they evolve with magnetic field and how they split into the four separate quantum states. They also observe states with Landau level filling factors of 7/2, 9/2 and 11/2.

    • Young Jae Song
    • , Alexander F. Otte
    •  & Joseph A. Stroscio

  • News & Views |

    Attosecond spectroscopy has been used to track the real-time motion of electrons in a krypton ion, and to probe the entanglement between an electron removed from the atom and the ion left behind.

    • Olga Smirnova

  • Letter |

    New methods are emerging that aim to image chemical reactions as they occur using X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction or laser-induced recollision, but spectral selection cannot be used to monitor the reacting molecules for these methods. These authors show that this apparent limitation offers opportunities for recollision-based high-harmonic spectroscopy, in which unexcited molecules can act as local oscillators against which structural and electronic dynamics is observed on an attosecond timescale.

    • H. J. Wörner
    • , J. B. Bertrand
    •  & D. M. Villeneuve

  • Letter |

    Here, a technically challenging spectroscopic experiment is described: the measurement of the muonic Lamb shift. The results lead to a new determination of the charge radius of the proton. The new value is 5.0 standard deviations smaller than the previous world average, a large discrepancy that remains unexplained. Possible implications of the new finding are that the value of the Rydberg constant will need to be revised, or that the validity of quantum electrodynamics theory is called into question.

    • Randolf Pohl
    • , Aldo Antognini
    •  & Franz Kottmann

  • News & Views |

    A measurement of the size of the proton, obtained using spectroscopy of an exotic atomic system, yields a result of unprecedented accuracy — but in disagreement with values obtained by previous methods.

    • Jeff Flowers

  • Letter |

    Surface-enhanced Raman scattering is a powerful spectroscopy technique that can be used to study substances down to the level of single molecules. But the practical applications have been limited by the need for metal substrates with roughened surfaces or in the form of nanoparticles. Here a new approach — shell-insulated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy — is described, and its versatility demonstrated with numerous test substances.

    • Jian Feng Li
    • , Yi Fan Huang
    •  & Zhong Qun Tian

  • News & Views |

    Gold nanoparticles coated with a thin layer of an oxide allow molecules adsorbed on surfaces as diverse as those of platinum, yeast cells or citrus fruits to be characterized routinely in the laboratory.

    • Martin Moskovits

  • Letter |

    Infrared spectroscopy can probe the conditions and compositions of exoplanet atmospheres. Previous results relied on space-based telescopes that do not provide spectroscopic capability in the 2.4–5.2 μm spectral region. Here, ground-based observations of the dayside emission spectrum for HD 189733b are reported between 2.0–2.4 μm and 3.1–4.1 μm; an unexpected feature at around 3.25 μm is found that is difficult to explain with models that assume local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions, and is assigned to methane.

    • Mark R. Swain
    • , Pieter Deroo
    •  & Thomas Henning

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