Seeing molecules inside a nanometer-sized 'sardine can': A clever new method for observing metal-organic frameworks and guest molecule interactions, using real-time polarized infrared spectroscopy

Researchers have successfully developed a new technique allowing them to observe gas molecules packing into metal-organic frameworks (MOF) using infrared spectroscopy. Their innovation was to measure polarized light absorption of guest molecules in a MOF film to deduce molecule alignment using this common piece of lab equipment. This method is the first to show guest alignment and does so in real-time, while using an accessible and easily adoptable experimental setup.