Abstract: | Prof. SUN Changpu from the CAS Institute of Theoretical Physics and coworkers from University of Basel in Switzerland have worked out a way - at least in theory - to split a beam of molecules according to their chirality. The technique involves passing the molecules through three different laser beams and is similar to the famous Stern-Gerlach effect, whereby a beam of atoms passing through a magnetic field is split in two according to the atoms' spin states (Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 130403). |