Two birds with one stone: Electronic and nuclear dynamics from photoelectrons

Speaker: Prof. Jan R. R. Verlet
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Durham University (UK)
Title: Two birds with one stone: Electronic and nuclear dynamics from photoelectrons
Abstract:
Anion photoelectron imaging is sensitive to the geometric structure of molecules as well as to the orbital from
which the electron is removed. Along a reaction coordinate, both change simultaneously and these concerted
changes can be probed in real-time. We demonstrate this for a few examples. For an isomerisation reaction of a
photoactive yellow protein chromophore, where we can unambiguously assign which bonds are being rotated
about.(1) A small chemical change leads to the appearance of a new channel involving a non-valence (dipolebound)
state of the anion. (2) For an electron-molecule reaction, we observe the initial formation of an anion
non-valence state that captures the electron and then evolves to the valence-bound anion.(3)
References:
(1) Nature Comm. 11, 2827 (2020); (2) Nature Comm. 10, 5820 (2019); (3) Nature Chem. 10, 341 (2018)