Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe x-ray spectroscopy of liquid water. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38359104/)

These scientists wanted to see how electrons move in real time in water. They used special x-ray pulses from a machine called an x-ray free electron laser to study what happens when electrons in water are excited. They found that the response of the electrons happened very quickly, even faster than a femtosecond (which is a millionth of a billionth of a second). This means that the movement of the hydrogen atoms in the water didn't affect the way the electrons behaved. They also discovered that a certain splitting in the x-ray spectrum was due to how the electrons moved, not because there were two different structures in the water. This study helped the scientists understand more about how electrons behave in liquids like water.

Li S., Lu L., Bhattacharyya S., Pearce C., Li K., Nienhuis ET., Doumy G., Schaller RD., Moeller S., Lin MF., Dakovski G., Hoffman DJ., Garratt D., Larsen KA., Koralek JD., Hampton CY., Cesar D., Duris J., Zhang Z., Sudar N., Cryan JP., Marinelli A., Li X., Inhester L., Santra R., Young L. Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe x-ray spectroscopy of liquid water. Science. 2024 Feb 15:eadn6059. doi: 10.1126/science.adn6059.