Jie Yang, Markus Gühr, Theodore Vecchione, Matthew Scott Robinson, Renkai Li, Nick Hartmann, Xiaozhe Shen, Ryan Coffee, Jeff Corbett, Alan Fry, Kelly Gaffney, Tais Gorkhover, Carsten Hast, Keith Jobe, Igor Makasyuk, Alexander Reid, Joseph Robinson, Sharon Vetter, Fenglin Wang, Stephen Weathersby, Charles Yoneda, Martin Centurion, Xijie Wang
- 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.
MetadatenAuthor details: | Jie Yang, Markus GührORCiDGND, Theodore Vecchione, Matthew Scott RobinsonORCiD, Renkai Li, Nick Hartmann, Xiaozhe Shen, Ryan Coffee, Jeff Corbett, Alan Fry, Kelly Gaffney, Tais Gorkhover, Carsten Hast, Keith Jobe, Igor Makasyuk, Alexander Reid, Joseph Robinson, Sharon Vetter, Fenglin Wang, Stephen Weathersby, Charles Yoneda, Martin Centurion, Xijie Wang |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11232 |
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ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
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Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27046298 |
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Title of parent work (English): | Nature Communications |
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Publisher: | Nature Publ. Group |
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Place of publishing: | London |
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Publication type: | Article |
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Language: | English |
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Year of first publication: | 2016 |
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Publication year: | 2016 |
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Release date: | 2020/03/22 |
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Volume: | 7 |
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Number of pages: | 9 |
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Funding institution: | US Department of Energy (DOE) [DE-AC02-76SF00515]; DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences Scientific User Facilities Division; SLAC UED/UEM Initiative Program Development Fund; AMOS program within the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, US Department of Energy; US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC0003931]; National Science Foundation EPSCoR RII Track-2 CA Award [IIA-1430519] |
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Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
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Peer review: | Referiert |
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