DOUBLE BOMBARDMENT EXPOSES THE DETAILED DYNAMICS OF HOW WATER MOLECULES BREAK APART
An international research team has used the SQS instrument at the European XFEL to gain new insights into how radiation damage occurs in biological tissue. The study reveals in detail how water molecules are broken apart by high-energy radiation, creating potentially hazardous electrically charged ions, which can go on to trigger harmful reactions in the organism. The team led by Maria Novella Piancastelli and Renaud Guillemin from the Sorbonne in Paris, Ludger Inhester from DESY and Till Jahnke from European XFEL presents its observations and analyses in the scientific journal Physical Review X.
Since water is present in every known organism, the so-called photolysis of water is often the starting point for radiation damage. “However, the chain of reactions that can be triggered in the body by high-energy radiation is still not fully understood,” explains Inhester. “For example, even just observing the formation of individual ions and radicals in water when high-energy radiation is absorbed is already very difficult.”
Read more on the XFEL website
Image: After the absorption of an X-ray photon, the water molecule can bend up so far that after only about ten femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second) both hydrogen atoms (grey) are facing each other, with the oxygen atom (red) in the middle. This motion can be studied by absorbing a second X-ray photon.
Credit: DESY, Ludger Inhester