Heather Coit/Grainger Engineering
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Molecules are very small to observe. Pinshane Huang and his colleagues discovered a way of looking at the structure in molecules, which opened up entirely new scientific possibilities.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id—Molecule is a combination of two or more atom. The size is still so small that it is difficult to see with the naked eye. Earlier in May 2021, scientists succeeded photographing high-resolution atoms for the first time.
If scientists are able to photograph the smallest object, it is not impossible to visualize the structure of small molecules clearly. Recent discoveries reveal advanced technology for imaging molecules. The goal is to create wider potential for the application of everyday life to knowledge about plastics and medicine.
The vivid visualization of the molecule is reported by the researchers in the journal Nano Letters on April 12, 2022. This finding becomes a technique for other research to study features, reactions, chemical processes, and how to synthesize chemical compounds of molecules.
“The structure of the molecule is fundamental to its function,” said Pinshane Huang, lead author of the study from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. “What we’ve done in our work is that it’s possible to see the structure firsthand.”
The development to see molecules was made thanks to significant advances in cryogenic electro technology, the researchers explained. The microscope can help biologists record large molecules (macromolecules) to get high -quality images of their structures.
“The question I have is: What prevents them from doing the same for small molecules?” Huang explained in University of Illinois-Champaign release. “If we can do that, you might be able to solve the structure (and) figure out how to synthesize natural compounds made by plants or animals. It can be very important, like a great disease fighter.”
The problem for researchers is that small molecules are often 100 or even 1,000 times smaller than large molecules. This is their challenge to detect, even though it is very difficult.
Huang and his students began using the existing large-molecule methodology as a starting point. The goal is to develop imaging techniques to allow smaller molecular structures to emerge.
In addition, small molecules have imaging signals that are easily influenced by the surrounding environment. They use ice which usually serves as a layer of protection from harsh environments microscope electrons, but small molecules use other means to maintain the structure of small molecules.
Huang and team used graphene, which is a thin flat sheet layer in which each carbon atom has an sp-double bond and is tightly packed. Graphene has the shape of a dense hexagonal honeycomb lattice, which eliminates damaging reactions during molecular imaging. In short, this way of stabilizing the small molecule environment is actually just one of the problems that must be addressed.
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