@article{WolfSanchezYangetal.2019, author = {Wolf, Thomas J. A. and Sanchez, David M. and Yang, J. and Parrish, R. M. and Nunes, J. P. F. and Centurion, M. and Coffee, R. and Cryan, J. P. and G{\"u}hr, Markus and Hegazy, Kareem and Kirrander, Adam and Li, R. K. and Ruddock, J. and Shen, Xiaozhe and Vecchione, T. and Weathersby, S. P. and Weber, Peter M. and Wilkin, K. and Yong, Haiwang and Zheng, Q. and Wang, X. J. and Minitti, Michael P. and Martinez, Todd J.}, title = {The photochemical ring-opening of 1,3-cyclohexadiene imaged by ultrafast electron diffraction}, series = {Nature chemistry}, volume = {11}, journal = {Nature chemistry}, number = {6}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {1755-4330}, doi = {10.1038/s41557-019-0252-7}, pages = {504 -- 509}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The ultrafast photoinduced ring-opening of 1,3-cyclohexadiene constitutes a textbook example of electrocyclic reactions in organic chemistry and a model for photobiological reactions in vitamin D synthesis. Although the relaxation from the photoexcited electronic state during the ring-opening has been investigated in numerous studies, the accompanying changes in atomic distance have not been resolved. Here we present a direct and unambiguous observation of the ring-opening reaction path on the femtosecond timescale and subangstrom length scale using megaelectronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction. We followed the carbon-carbon bond dissociation and the structural opening of the 1,3-cyclohexadiene ring by the direct measurement of time-dependent changes in the distribution of interatomic distances. We observed a substantial acceleration of the ring-opening motion after internal conversion to the ground state due to a steepening of the electronic potential gradient towards the product minima. The ring-opening motion transforms into rotation of the terminal ethylene groups in the photoproduct 1,3,5-hexatriene on the subpicosecond timescale.}, language = {en} } @article{WolfMyhreCryanetal.2017, author = {Wolf, T. J. A. and Myhre, R. H. and Cryan, J. P. and Coriani, S. and Squibb, R. J. and Battistoni, A. and Berrah, Nora and Bostedt, Christoph and Bucksbaum, Philip H. and Coslovich, G. and Feifel, R. and Gaffney, K. J. and Grilj, J. and Martinez, T. J. and Miyabe, S. and Moeller, S. P. and Mucke, M. and Natan, A. and Obaid, R. and Osipov, T. and Plekan, O. and Wang, S. and Koch, H. and Guehr, Markus}, title = {Probing ultrafast pi pi*/n pi* internal conversion in organic chromophores via K-edge resonant absorption}, series = {Nature Communications}, volume = {8}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {2041-1723}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-017-00069-7}, pages = {14317 -- 14322}, year = {2017}, language = {en} } @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} } @article{YangZhuWolfetal.2018, author = {Yang, Jie and Zhu, Xiaolei and Wolf, Thomas J. A. and Li, Zheng and Nunes, Jo{\~a}o Pedro Figueira and Coffee, Ryan and Cryan, James P. and G{\"u}hr, Markus and Hegazy, Kareem and Heinz, Tony F. and Jobe, Keith and Li, Renkai and Shen, Xiaozhe and Veccione, Theodore and Weathersby, Stephen and Wilkin, Kyle J. and Yoneda, Charles and Zheng, Qiang and Martinez, Todd J. and Centurion, Martin and Wang, Xijie}, title = {Imaging CF3I conical intersection and photodissociation dynamics with ultrafast electron diffraction}, series = {Science}, volume = {361}, journal = {Science}, number = {6397}, publisher = {American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0036-8075}, doi = {10.1126/science.aat0049}, pages = {64 -- 67}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Conical intersections play a critical role in excited-state dynamics of polyatomic molecules because they govern the reaction pathways of many nonadiabatic processes. However, ultrafast probes have lacked sufficient spatial resolution to image wave-packet trajectories through these intersections directly. Here, we present the simultaneous experimental characterization of one-photon and two-photon excitation channels in isolated CF3I molecules using ultrafast gas-phase electron diffraction. In the two-photon channel, we have mapped out the real-space trajectories of a coherent nuclear wave packet, which bifurcates onto two potential energy surfaces when passing through a conical intersection. In the one-photon channel, we have resolved excitation of both the umbrella and the breathing vibrational modes in the CF3 fragment in multiple nuclear dimensions. These findings benchmark and validate ab initio nonadiabatic dynamics calculations.}, language = {en} }