Revealing elusive electron behavior in metal-organic framework photocatalysts

Transforming sunlight into chemical energy is one of nature's most elegant tricks. Scientists studying artificial versions of this process have long struggled to track the fleeting movements of electrons that occur when light strikes a catalyst - the material that speeds up chemical reactions. These rapid electronic transitions, happening in mere fractions of a second, are crucial to developing more efficient chemical manufacturing processes, yet they've remained largely invisible to conventional measurement techniques.