VH-NG-904
Watching Chemistry in Action: Probing Ultrafast Chemical Dynamics by Time-Resolved Photoelectron Imaging
Programmorientierte Förderung von DESY
Watching Chemistry in Action: Probing Ultrafast Chemical Dynamics by Time-Resolved Photoelectron Imaging
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Notkestraße 85
22607 Hamburg
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Wilhelmsplatz 1
37073 Göttingen
Taking a movie of a chemical reaction with atomic resolution? Watching the making and breaking of chemical bonds in real time? The successes of the world’s first VUV and X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers FLASH at DESY in Hamburg and LCLS at SLAC in Stanford together
with the continuing technical advances in the creation of (sub-) femtosecond VUV pulses by high harmonic generation (HHG) have turned the once lofty vision of “recording a molecular movie” with femtosecond temporal and atomic scale structural resolution into a realistic scenario. Using advanced experimental techniques such as time-resolved photoelectron diffraction and photoelectron spectroscopy, Coulomb explosion imaging, and electron-ion coincidence spectroscopy, the proposed activities focus on visualizing nuclear and electronic dynamics during (photo-)chemical reactions by means of femtosecond pump-probe experiments with intense and short-pulse VUV and X-ray radiation from Free-Electron Lasers complemented by electron-ion coincidence experiments and spectroscopy with 3rd generation synchrotron sources and laboratory-based HHG sources. These experiments at the borderline between atomic & molecular physics and chemistry promise to have a profound impact on our understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms, of ubiquitous concepts like “transition states”, structural intermediates, isomerization processes, funnelling dynamics at conical intersections, and of chemical reaction dynamics in general. The aim of the proposed research is to establish and further develop the experimental techniques capable of imaging photochemical reactions in gas-phase molecules and to study exemplary reactions of chemical relevance with the goal of clarifying their pathways.
Leader of the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group:
Dr. Daniel Rolles
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Notkestr. 85
22607 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 8998-6239
Email: daniel.rolles@desy.de
University partner
Prof. Dr. Simone Techert
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Wilhelmsplatz 1
37073 Göttingen
