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Updated: May 4, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Decrypting Material Performance by Wide-field Femtosecond Interferometric Imaging of Energy Carrier Evolution
Pin-Tian Lyu1, Qing-Yue Li1, Pei Wu1
1State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
Abstract:
Energy carrier evolution is crucial for material performance. Ultrafast microscopy has been widely applied to visualize the spatiotemporal evolution of energy carriers. However, direct imaging of a small amount of energy carriers on the nanoscale remains difficult due to extremely weak transient signals. Here, we present a method for ultrasensitive and high-throughput imaging of energy carrier evolution in space and time. This method combines femtosecond pump-probe techniques with interferometric scattering microscopy (iSCAT), named Femto-iSCAT. The interferometric principle and unique spatially modulated contrast enhancement enable the exploration of new science. We address three important and challenging problems: transport of different energy carriers at various interfaces, heterogeneous hot-electron distribution and relaxation in single plasmonic resonators, and distinct structure-dependent edge-state dynamics of carriers and excitons in optoelectronic semiconductors. Femto-iSCAT holds great potential as a universal tool for ultrasensitive imaging of energy carrier evolution in space and time.
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