Title: Extracting conformational structure information of benzene molecules via laser-induced electron diffraction

Abstract

Here, we have measured the angular distributions of high energy photoelectrons of benzene molecules generated by intense infrared femtosecond laser pulses. These electrons arise from the elastic collisions between the benzene ions with the previously tunnel-ionized electrons that have been driven back by the laser field. Theory shows that laser-free elastic differential cross sections (DCSs) can be extracted from these photoelectrons, and the DCS can be used to retrieve the bond lengths of gas-phase molecules similar to the conventional electron diffraction method. From our experimental results, we have obtained the C-C and C-H bond lengths of benzene with a spatial resolution of about 10 pm. Our results demonstrate that laser induced electron diffraction (LIED) experiments can be carried out with the present-day ultrafast intense lasers already. Looking ahead, with aligned or oriented molecules, more complete spatial information of the molecule can be obtained from LIED, and applying LIED to probe photo-excited molecules, a “molecular movie” of the dynamic system may be created with sub-A°ngstrom spatial and few-ten femtosecond temporal resolutions.

Authors:

Ito, Yuta ^[1]; Wang, Chuncheng ^[2]; Le, Anh-Thu ^[3]; Okunishi, Misaki ^[1]; Ding, Dajun ^[2]; Lin, C. D. ^[3]; Ueda, Kiyoshi ^[1]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan
2. Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China
3. J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-2604, USA

Publication Date:

Sun May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016

Research Org.:

Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

OSTI Identifier:

1310357

Grant/Contract Number:  

FG02-86ER13491

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Structural Dynamics

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2329-7778

Publisher:

American Crystallographic Association/AIP

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; chemical bonds; electron diffraction; spatial resolution; ionization; femtosecond dynamics