How to Flow Ultrathin Water Layers - A Liquid Flatjet for X-Ray Spectroscopy
Liquid flatjet system, showing the two nozzles from which two impinging single jets form a liquid water sheet with a thickness of 1 - 2 μm. © MBI
A collaboration between scientists from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) have now demonstrated the successful implementation of a liquid flatjet with a thickness in the μm range, allowing for XAS transmission measurements in the soft-x-ray regime. This paves the way for novel steady-state and time-resolved experiments.
A collaboration between scientists from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) have now demonstrated the successful implementation of a liquid flatjet with a thickness in the μm range, allowing for XAS transmission measurements in the soft-x-ray regime. This paves the way for novel steady-state and time-resolved experiments.
Here a phenomenon well known in the field of fluid dynamics has been applied: by obliquely colliding two identical laminar jets, the liquid expands radially, generating a sheet in the form of a leaf, bounded by a thicker rim, orthogonal to the plane of the impinging jets.
The novel aspect here is that a liquid water flatjet has been demonstrated with thicknesses in the few micrometer range, stable for tens to hundreds of minutes, fully operational under vacuum conditions (‹10-3mbar). For the first time, soft x-ray absorption spectra of a liquid sample could be measured in transmission without any membrane. The x-ray measurements were performed at the soft x-ray synchrotron facility BESSYII of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. This technological breakthrough opens up new frontiers in steady-state and time-resolved soft-x-ray spectroscopy of solution phase systems.
Read the full text at MBI.
Original publication: Structural Dynamics 2, 054301 (2015): A liquid flatjet system for solution phase soft-x-ray spectroscopy
Maria Ekimova, Wilson Quevedo, Manfred Faubel, Philippe Wernet, Erik T.J. Nibbering
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