Frizzed molecular carpets

Researchers have taken the first snapshots of heat bursts moving along hydrocarbon molecules.

A team led by Dana Dlott at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, anchored ends of the carbon-chain molecules to a gold surface, creating an atomic-scale carpet. A laser pulse then heated the gold base to around 800 kelvins in less than a trillionth of a second.