Chemistry with synchrotron radiation

An accidental by-product of high-energy physics, synchrotron radiation, has emerged as one of the most powerful tools for the understanding of chemical reactions. Advances made by using synchrotron radiation in physical chemistry are reviewed herein. Descriptions of experiments exploiting the many ways that synchrotron radiation can be manipulated are presented. These manipulations include intensification of the radiation and compression or shifting of its spectral structure. Combinations of the use of synchrotron radiation, which provides access to very short wavelengths and is, at the same time, continuously and easily tunable, with laser radiation, which offers much higher resolution and much more intense radiation per pulse, but is difficult to tune in the ultraviolet region of the spectra, gives the chemist a way to map a molecule's potential energy curve, to note the lengths and strengths of chemical bonds, and to predict and explain novel reactions of more complex molecules. The use of diffraction of x-rays to study the spacing of atoms in crystals is discussed. Various applications of synchrotron radiation to studies of the fluorescence of hydrocarbons and to the chiral dichroism studies of other natural products like DNA and RNA are described. Methods for enhancing synchrotron light sources by insertion devices, such as wigglers and undulators, that increase the available photo flux and construction of new sources of synchrotron radiation are mentioned