@article{BerrahSanchezGonzalezJureketal.2019, author = {Berrah, N. and S{\´a}nchez-Gonz{\´a}lez, {\´A}lvaro and Jurek, Zoltan and Obaid, Razib and Xiong, H. and Squibb, R. J. and Osipov, T. and Lutman, A. and Fang, L. and Barillot, T. and Bozek, J. D. and Cryan, J. and Wolf, T. J. A. and Rolles, Daniel and Coffee, R. and Schnorr, Kirsten and Augustin, S. and Fukuzawa, Hironobu and Motomura, K. and Niebuhr, Nina Isabelle and Frasinski, L. J. and Feifel, Raimund and Schulz, Claus-Peter and Toyota, Kenji and Son, Sang-Kil and Ueda, K. and Pfeifer, T. and Marangos, J. P. and Santra, Robin}, title = {Femtosecond-resolved observation of the fragmentation of buckminsterfullerene following X-ray multiphoton ionization}, series = {Nature physics}, volume = {15}, journal = {Nature physics}, number = {12}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {1745-2473}, doi = {10.1038/s41567-019-0665-7}, pages = {1279 -- 1301}, year = {2019}, abstract = {X-ray free-electron lasers have, over the past decade, opened up the possibility of understanding the ultrafast response of matter to intense X-ray pulses. In earlier research on atoms and small molecules, new aspects of this response were uncovered, such as rapid sequences of inner-shell photoionization and Auger ionization. Here, we studied a larger molecule, buckminsterfullerene (C-60), exposed to 640 eV X-rays, and examined the role of chemical effects, such as chemical bonds and charge transfer, on the fragmentation following multiple ionization of the molecule. To provide time resolution, we performed femtosecond-resolved X-ray pump/X-ray probe measurements, which were accompanied by advanced simulations. The simulations and experiment reveal that despite substantial ionization induced by the ultrashort (20 fs) X-ray pump pulse, the fragmentation of C-60 is considerably delayed. This work uncovers the persistence of the molecular structure of C-60, which hinders fragmentation over a timescale of hundreds of femtoseconds. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a substantial fraction of the ejected fragments are neutral carbon atoms. These findings provide insights into X-ray free-electron laser-induced radiation damage in large molecules, including biomolecules.}, language = {en} }