Researchers Observe Hydrogen-Bond Exchange

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Image of the Hsub2sub0 and Dsub2sub0 dimers. The Hsub2sub0 dimer appears to fluctuate in the image because they exchange hydrogen bonds 60 times faster than the Dsub2sub0 dimers. The rate difference implies that the interchange proceeds via quantum t ...
Image of the H20 and D20 dimers. The H20 dimer appears to fluctuate in the image because they exchange hydrogen bonds 60 times faster than the D20 dimers. The rate difference implies that the interchange proceeds via quantum tunneling. Credit: Kumagai, et al.

Hydrogen bonds are quite small, on the level of a few angstroms. They can also be passed between two different molecules very quickly, at speeds of tens of times per second. But in spite of these properties, researchers have recently observed hydrogen-bond exchange taking place in real-time.


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