By By Sonia D'Costa Dec 18, 2013 in Science How long does it take to boil water? Physicists at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg have shown, at least in theory, that it is possible to boil water in just half a picosecond. In their So, how does one The Hamburg team has also However, terahertz radiation generation technology is still in a stage of infancy, owing to which it is called the “terahertz gap.” Physicists still have a lot of work to do in this area. A picosecond is equal to one trillionth of a second. If an object were to move at the speed of light for one picosecond, it will move 0.30mm.In their report published in Angewandte Chemie, the German physicists say that the concept opens up new ways of conducting experiments with water. Oriol Vendrell, a Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) scientist at CFEL , says: “Water is the single most important medium in which chemical and biological processes take place. Water is not just a passive solvent, but plays an important role in the dynamics of biological and chemical processes by stabilizing certain chemical compounds and enabling specific reactions.”So, how does one boil water in just half a picosecond ? One would require terahertz radiation, which comprises electromagnetic waves of a frequency between the frequencies of microwave and infrared waves. There are several ways to create terahertz flashes, but CFEL scientists used a free-electron laser to do so. The terahertz flash so created was found to increase the intensity of the interaction among water molecules in the shortest time possible, making the water molecules vibrate fast and generate a lot of heat.The Hamburg team has also calculated the interaction between water and the terahertz flash at the Supercomputer Center Julich. Dr Oriol Vendrell said: “We have calculated that it should be possible to heat up the liquid to about 600 degrees Celsius within just half a picosecond, obtaining a transiently hot and structureless environment still at the density of the liquid, leaving all water molecules intact.” The method can be used to heat a nanolitre of water, which the scientists say is an amount big enough to conduct most experiments. Vendrell says, “The idea is to heat-up the solvent so that many molecules start the desired chemical process at the same time and then watch the reaction evolve.”However, terahertz radiation generation technology is still in a stage of infancy, owing to which it is called the “terahertz gap.” Physicists still have a lot of work to do in this area. More about cfel, Boil water, fast heating method cfel Boil water fast heating method