Photoinduced molecular chirality probed by ultrafast resonant X-ray spectroscopy

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Structural Dynamics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4974260· OSTI ID:1374552

Rouxel, Jérémy R. ^[1]; Kowalewski, Markus ^[1]; Mukamel, Shaul ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry

Recently developed circularly polarized X-ray light sources can probe the ultrafast chiral electronic and nuclear dynamics through spatially localized resonant core transitions. Here, we present simulations of time-resolved circular dichroism signals given by the difference of left and right circularly polarized X-ray probe transmission following an excitation by a circularly polarized optical pump with the variable time delay. Application is made to formamide which is achiral in the ground state and assumes two chiral geometries upon optical excitation to the first valence excited state. Probes resonant with various K-edges (C, N, and O) provide different local windows onto the parity breaking geometry change thus revealing the enantiomer asymmetry.

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Grant/Contract Number: FG02-04ER15571; CHE-1361516
• OSTI ID: 1374552
• Journal Information: Structural Dynamics, Vol. 4, Issue 4; ISSN 2329-7778
• Publisher: American Crystallographic Association/AIP
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Chiral symmetries
Excited states
Optical signal processing
Ground states
X-ray lasers