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Updated: Mar 10, 2026

$Measurements of Long-range Electronic Correlations During Femtosecond Diffraction Experiments Performed on Nanocrystals of Buckminsterfullerene$

Measurements of Long-range Electronic Correlations During Femtosecond Diffraction Experiments Performed on Nanocrystals of Buckminsterfullerene

Published on: August 22, 2017

Structure determination of molecules in an alignment laser field by femtosecond photoelectron diffraction using an

Shinichirou Minemoto¹, Takahiro Teramoto², Hiroshi Akagi³

¹Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.

Scientific Reports

|December 10, 2016

Abstract:

We have successfully determined the internuclear distance of I₂ molecules in an alignment laser field by applying our molecular structure determination methodology to an I 2p X-ray photoelectron diffraction profile observed with femtosecond X-ray free electron laser pulses. Using this methodology, we have found that the internuclear distance of the sample I₂ molecules in an alignment Nd:YAG laser field of 6 × 10¹¹ W/cm² is elongated by from 0.18 to 0.30 Å "in average" relatively to the equilibrium internuclear distance of 2.666 Å. Thus, the present experiment constitutes a critical step towards the goal of femtosecond imaging of chemical reactions and opens a new direction for the study of ultrafast chemical reaction in the gas phase.

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