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- Borne, Kurtis D., et al.
(författare)
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Ultrafast electronic relaxation pathways of the molecular photoswitch quadricyclane
- 2024
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Ingår i: NATURE CHEMISTRY. - : Springer Nature. - 1755-4330 .- 1755-4349. ; 16, s. 499-505
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The light-induced ultrafast switching between molecular isomers norbornadiene and quadricyclane can reversibly store and release a substantial amount of chemical energy. Prior work observed signatures of ultrafast molecular dynamics in both isomers upon ultraviolet excitation but could not follow the electronic relaxation all the way back to the ground state experimentally. Here we study the electronic relaxation of quadricyclane after exciting in the ultraviolet (201 nanometres) using time-resolved gas-phase extreme ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy combined with non-adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations. We identify two competing pathways by which electronically excited quadricyclane molecules relax to the electronic ground state. The fast pathway (<100 femtoseconds) is distinguished by effective coupling to valence electronic states, while the slow pathway involves initial motions across Rydberg states and takes several hundred femtoseconds. Both pathways facilitate interconversion between the two isomers, albeit on different timescales, and we predict that the branching ratio of norbornadiene/quadricyclane products immediately after returning to the electronic ground state is approximately 3:2.
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| 3. |
- Champenois, Elio G., et al.
(författare)
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Femtosecond Electronic and Hydrogen Structural Dynamics in Ammonia Imaged with Ultrafast Electron Diffraction
- 2023
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society (APS). - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 131:14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Directly imaging structural dynamics involving hydrogen atoms by ultrafast diffraction methods is complicated by their low scattering cross sections. Here we demonstrate that megaelectronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction is sufficiently sensitive to follow hydrogen dynamics in isolated molecules. In a study of the photodissociation of gas phase ammonia, we simultaneously observe signatures of the nuclear and corresponding electronic structure changes resulting from the dissociation dynamics in the time-dependent diffraction. Both assignments are confirmed by ab initio simulations of the photochemical dynamics and the resulting diffraction observable. While the temporal resolution of the experiment is insufficient to resolve the dissociation in time, our results represent an important step towards the observation of proton dynamics in real space and time.
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- Yang, Jie, et al.
(författare)
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Direct observation of ultrafast hydrogen bond strengthening in liquid water
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 596:7873
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Water is one of the most important, yet least understood, liquids in nature. Many anomalous properties of liquid water originate from its well-connected hydrogen bond network, including unusually efficient vibrational energy redistribution and relaxation2. An accurate description of the ultrafast vibrational motion of water molecules is essential for understanding the nature of hydrogen bonds and many solution-phase chemical reactions. Most existing knowledge of vibrational relaxation in water is built upon ultrafast spectroscopy experiments. However, these experiments cannot directly resolve the motion of the atomic positions and require difficult translation of spectral dynamics into hydrogen bond dynamics. Here, we measure the ultrafast structural response to the excitation of the OH stretching vibration in liquid water with femtosecond temporal and atomic spatial resolution using liquid ultrafast electron scattering. We observed a transient hydrogen bond contraction of roughly 0.04 Å on a timescale of 80 femtoseconds, followed by a thermalization on a timescale of approximately 1 picosecond. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal the need to treat the distribution of the shared proton in the hydrogen bond quantum mechanically to capture the structural dynamics on femtosecond timescales. Our experiment and simulations unveil the intermolecular character of the water vibration preceding the relaxation of the OH stretch.
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