The Munich Compact Light Source: initial performance measures

While large‐scale synchrotron sources provide a highly brilliant monochromatic X‐ray beam, these X‐ray sources are expensive in terms of installation and maintenance, and require large amounts of space due to the size of storage rings for GeV electrons. On the other hand, laboratory X‐ray tube sources can easily be implemented in laboratories or hospitals with comparatively little cost, but their performance features a lower brilliance and a polychromatic spectrum creates problems with beam hardening artifacts for imaging experiments. Over the last decade, compact synchrotron sources based on inverse Compton scattering have evolved as one of the most promising types of laboratory‐scale X‐ray sources: they provide a performance and brilliance that lie in between those of large‐scale synchrotron sources and X‐ray tube sources, with significantly reduced financial and spatial requirements. These sources produce X‐rays through the collision of relativistic electrons with infrared laser photons. In this study, an analysis of the performance, such as X‐ray flux, source size and spectra, of the first commercially sold compact light source, the Munich Compact Light Source, is presented.     

Short note on the excitonic Mott phase

An exciton gas on a lattice is analysed in terms of a convergent hopping expansion. For a given chemical potential, our calculation provides a sufficient condition for the hopping rate to obtain an exponential decay of the exciton correlation function. This result indicates the existence of a Mott phase in which strong fluctuations destroy the long range correlations in the exciton gas at any temperature, either by thermal or by quantum fluctuations.     

Fluorescence lifetime imaging of molecular rotors to map microviscosity in cells

Fluorescence liftime imaging （FLIM） of modified hydrophobic bodipy dyes that act as fluorescent molecular rotors shows that the fluorescence lifetime of these probes is a function of the microviscosity of their environment. Incubating cells with these dyes, we find a punctate and continuous distribution of the dye in cells. The viscosity value obtained in what appears to be endocytotic vesicles in living cells is around 100 times higher than that of water and of cellular cytoplasm.Time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy measurements also yield rotational correlation times consistent with large microviscosity values. In this way, we successfully develop a practical and versatile approach to map the microviscosity in cells based on imaging fluorescent molecular rotors.     

Local structural order in carbonic acid polymorphs: Raman and FT‐IR spectroscopy

Two different polymorphs of carbonic acid, α‐ and β‐H₂CO₃, were identified and characterized using infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR) previously. Our attempts to determine the crystal structures of these two polymorphs using powder and thin‐film X‐ray diffraction techniques have failed so far. Here, we report the Raman spectrum of the α‐polymorph, compare it with its FT‐IR spectrum and present band assignments in line with our work on the β‐polymorph [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 48 (2009) 2690–2694]. The Raman spectra also contain information in the wavenumber range ∼90–400 cm⁻¹, which was not accessible by FT‐IR spectroscopy in the previous work. While the α‐polymorph shows Raman and IR bands at similar positions over the whole accessible range, the rule of mutual exclusion is obeyed for the β‐polymorph. This suggests that there is a center of inversion in the basic building block of β‐H₂CO₃ whereas there is none in α‐H₂CO₃. Thus, as the basic motif in the crystal structure we suggest the cyclic carbonic acid dimer containing a center of inversion in case of β‐H₂CO₃ and a catemer chain or a sheet‐like structure based on carbonic acid dimers not containing a center of inversion in case of α‐H₂CO₃. This hypothesis is strengthened when comparing Raman active lattice modes at < 400 cm⁻¹ with the calculated Raman spectra for different dimers. In particular, the intense band at 192 cm⁻¹ in β‐H₂CO₃ can be explained by the inter‐dimer stretching mode of the centrosymmetric RC(OHO)₂ CR entity with ROH. The same entity can be found in gas‐phase formic acid (RH) and in β‐oxalic acid (RCOOH) and produces an intense Raman active band at a very similar wavenumber. The absence of this band in α‐H₂CO₃ confirms that the difference to β‐H₂CO₃ is found in the local coordination environment and/or monomer conformation rather than on the long range. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bimodal Nanoparticle Size Distributions Produced by Laser Ablation of Microparticles in Aerosols

Silver nanoparticles were produced by laser ablation of a continuously flowing aerosol of microparticles in nitrogen at varying laser fluences. Transmission electron micrographs were analyzed to determine the effect of laser fluence on the nanoparticle size distribution. These distributions exhibited bimodality with a large number of particles in a mode at small sizes (3–6-nm) and a second, less populated mode at larger sizes (11–16-nm). Both modes shifted to larger sizes with increasing laser fluence, with the small size mode shifting by 35% and the larger size mode by 25% over a fluence range of 0.3–4.2-J/cm². Size histograms for each mode were found to be well represented by log-normal distributions. The distribution of mass displayed a striking shift from the large to the small size mode with increasing laser fluence. These results are discussed in terms of a model of nanoparticle formation from two distinct laser–solid interactions. Initially, laser vaporization of material from the surface leads to condensation of nanoparticles in the ambient gas. Material evaporation occurs until the plasma breakdown threshold of the microparticles is reached, generating a shock wave that propagates through the remaining material. Rapid condensation of the vapor in the low-pressure region occurs behind the traveling shock wave. Measurement of particle size distributions versus gas pressure in the ablation region, as well as, versus microparticle feedstock size confirmed the assignment of the larger size mode to surface-vaporization and the smaller size mode to shock-formed nanoparticles.