Attosecond Charge Migration in Molecules Imaged by Combined X-ray and Electron Diffraction

Area of Science:

• Physical Chemistry
• Molecular Dynamics
• Attosecond Science

Background:

• Understanding ultrafast electronic processes in molecules is crucial.
• Charge migration, the rapid redistribution of electronic charge after photoexcitation, occurs on attosecond timescales.
• Observing these dynamics requires advanced temporal resolution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a method for visualizing charge migration dynamics in molecules.
• To capture real-space movies of electronic charge density changes.
• To achieve attosecond temporal resolution for molecular dynamics.

Main Methods:

• Combining ultrafast gas-phase X-ray and electron diffraction signals.
• Utilizing the ground-state nuclear structure as a reference.
• Isolating a mixed electronic-nuclear interference term.

Main Results:

• Successful generation of real-space movies of charge migration dynamics.
• Identification and isolation of a unique interference term.
• Demonstration of attosecond time-scale resolution for electronic charge density changes.

Conclusions:

• The combined diffraction technique enables direct visualization of ultrafast charge migration.
• Phase information from the interference term is key to real-space inversion.
• This method opens new avenues for studying electronic dynamics in molecules.