@article{BeyeOebergXinetal.2016, author = {Beye, Martin and {\"O}berg, Henrik and Xin, Hongliang and Dakovski, Georgi L. and F{\"o}hlisch, Alexander and Gladh, Jorgen and Hantschmann, Markus and Hieke, Florian and Kaya, Sarp and K{\"u}hn, Danilo and LaRue, Jerry and Mercurio, Giuseppe and Minitti, Michael P. and Mitra, Ankush and Moeller, Stefan P. and Ng, May Ling and Nilsson, Anders and Nordlund, Dennis and Norskov, Jens and {\"O}str{\"o}m, Henrik and Ogasawara, Hirohito and Persson, Mats and Schlotter, William F. and Sellberg, Jonas A. and Wolf, Martin and Abild-Pedersen, Frank and Pettersson, Lars G. M. and Wurth, Wilfried}, title = {Chemical Bond Activation Observed with an X-ray Laser}, series = {The journal of physical chemistry letters}, volume = {7}, journal = {The journal of physical chemistry letters}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {1948-7185}, doi = {10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b01543}, pages = {3647 -- 3651}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The concept of bonding and antibonding orbitals is fundamental in chemistry. The population of those orbitals and the energetic difference between the two reflect the strength of the bonding interaction. Weakening the bond is expected to reduce this energetic splitting, but the transient character of bond-activation has so far prohibited direct experimental access. Here we apply time-resolved soft X-ray spectroscopy at a free electron laser to directly observe the decreased bonding antibonding splitting following bond-activation using an ultrashort optical laser pulse.}, language = {en} }