Abstract
Time-resolved femtosecond x-ray diffraction patterns from laser-excited molecular iodine are used to create a movie of intramolecular motion with a temporal and spatial resolution of 30 fs and 0.3 Å. This high fidelity is due to interference between the nonstationary excitation and the stationary initial charge distribution. The initial state is used as the local oscillator for heterodyne amplification of the excited charge distribution to retrieve real-space movies of atomic motion on ångstrom and femtosecond scales. This x-ray interference has not been employed to image internal motion in molecules before. Coherent vibrational motion and dispersion, dissociation, and rotational dephasing are all clearly visible in the data, thereby demonstrating the stunning sensitivity of heterodyne methods.
- Received 10 August 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.153003
© 2016 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
Showtime for Molecular Movies
Published 3 October 2016
Molecular movies of vibrating iodine molecules have been recorded in time-resolved x-ray and electron diffraction experiments.
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