Tabletop imaging of structural evolutions in chemical reactions demonstrated for the acetylene cation

The introduction of femto-chemistry has made it a primary goal to follow the nuclear and electronic evolution of a molecule in time and space as it undergoes a chemical reaction. Using Coulomb Explosion Imaging, we have shot the first high-resolution molecular movie of a to and fro isomerization pro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2014-07, Vol.5 (1), p.4422-4422, Article 4422
Main Authors: Ibrahim, Heide, Wales, Benji, Beaulieu, Samuel, Schmidt, Bruno E, Thiré, Nicolas, Fowe, Emmanuel P, Bisson, Éric, Hebeisen, Christoph T, Wanie, Vincent, Giguére, Mathieu, Kieffer, Jean-Claude, Spanner, Michael, Bandrauk, André D, Sanderson, Joseph, Schuurman, Michael S, Légaré, François
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Physics
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The introduction of femto-chemistry has made it a primary goal to follow the nuclear and electronic evolution of a molecule in time and space as it undergoes a chemical reaction. Using Coulomb Explosion Imaging, we have shot the first high-resolution molecular movie of a to and fro isomerization process in the acetylene cation. So far, this kind of phenomenon could only be observed using vacuum ultraviolet light from a free-electron laser. Here we show that 266 nm ultrashort laser pulses are capable of initiating rich dynamics through multiphoton ionization. With our generally applicable tabletop approach that can be used for other small organic molecules, we have investigated two basic chemical reactions simultaneously: proton migration and C=C bond breaking, triggered by multiphoton ionization. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the timescales and relaxation pathways predicted by new and quantitative ab initio trajectory simulations.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms5422