Observing the life and death of a single excited-state molecule

Researchers have observed electrons jumping between different energy levels in an individual molecule, and how the jumps can be suppressed when the excess energy is transferred instead to a nearby oxygen molecule – a process called quenching.

By positioning the two molecules on a surface with atomic precision, the team could study how quenching is affected by their geometric arrangement. Such energy transfer between molecules is a fundamental process in chemistry and life, for example in photosynthesis.