TY  - JOUR
A1  - Yang, Jie
A1  - Gühr, Markus
A1  - Vecchione, Theodore
A1  - Robinson, Matthew Scott
A1  - Li, Renkai
A1  - Hartmann, Nick
A1  - Shen, Xiaozhe
A1  - Coffee, Ryan
A1  - Corbett, Jeff
A1  - Fry, Alan
A1  - Gaffney, Kelly
A1  - Gorkhover, Tais
A1  - Hast, Carsten
A1  - Jobe, Keith
A1  - Makasyuk, Igor
A1  - Reid, Alexander
A1  - Robinson, Joseph
A1  - Vetter, Sharon
A1  - Wang, Fenglin
A1  - Weathersby, Stephen
A1  - Yoneda, Charles
A1  - Centurion, Martin
A1  - Wang, Xijie
T1  - Diffractive imaging of a rotational wavepacket in nitrogen molecules
with femtosecond megaelectronvolt electron pulses
T2  - Nature Communications
N2  - Imaging changes in molecular geometries on their natural femtosecond timescale with sub-Angstrom spatial precision is one of the critical challenges in the chemical sciences, as the nuclear geometry changes determine the molecular reactivity. For photoexcited molecules, the nuclear dynamics determine the photoenergy conversion path and efficiency. Here we report a gas-phase electron diffraction experiment using megaelectronvolt (MeV) electrons, where we captured the rotational wavepacket dynamics of nonadiabatically laser-aligned nitrogen molecules. We achieved a combination of 100 fs root-mean-squared temporal resolution and sub-Angstrom (0.76 angstrom) spatial resolution that makes it possible to resolve the position of the nuclei within the molecule. In addition, the diffraction patterns reveal the angular distribution of the molecules, which changes from prolate (aligned) to oblate (anti-aligned) in 300 fs. Our results demonstrate a significant and promising step towards making atomically resolved movies of molecular reactions.
Y1  - 2016
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45477
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 7
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  -