It is interesting to know how molecules behave at nano-meter distances to external forces like magnetic fields, electric fields, sound, and light. This is important to know for proper understanding and development of nano-scale products, and solutions. A team of scientists and engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found a way to time such effects at the nanometer scale. This would enable clocking the movement of molecules at nanometer scale by using appropriate magnetic, and electric fields. The event is published in May 2006 edition of journal of Physical Review Letters. The innovation provides a way to probe another dimension of material's structure at the scale of nanometers. Adding the dimension of time to their view of the nano world promises to enhance the ability to develop materials that conform to nanotechnology. "Now we have a tool to look inside a device and see how it works at the spatial scale of nanometers and the time scale of nanoseconds", says Alexei Grigoriev, a UW Madison postdoctoral fellow and the lead author of the Physical Review Letters paper. Nanotechnology has enabled us to make devices and products on a scale of nanometers, measured in atoms and molecules. Nanotech has potential applications ranging from digital electronics to robot controlled space operations. The traditional tools of nanotechnology are the atomic force microscope, and the scanning tunneling microscope. They enable scientists to see atoms. But, you can't see their response to events, which at that scale occur on the order of a billionth of a second or less. The ability to time events in nanofabrication ensures that dynamic events at the atomic scale are viewed. It enables scientists and engineers to understand and manipulate nanoformations in products and devices. The work was accomplished using Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source, a synchrotron light source capable of generating very tightly focused beams of X-rays. Complete article can be read at http://www.news.wisc.edu/12614.html