A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä
Probing the structure of complex hydrocarbon molecules with X-ray-induced Coulomb explosion imaging
Tekijät: Borne, Kurtis D.; Boll, Rebecca; Baumann, Thomas M.; Bhattacharyya, Surjendu; Centurion, Martin; Chen, Keyu; Erk, Benjamin; De Fanis, Alberto; Forbes, Ruaridh; Ilchen, Markus; Kukk, Edwin; Lam, Huynh V. S.; Li, Xiang; Ma, Lingyu; Mazza, Tommaso; Meyer, Michael; Mullins, Terence; Nunes, J. Pedro F.; Odate, Asami; Pathak, Shashank; Rivas, Daniel; Schmidt, Philipp; Trinter, Florian; Usenko, Sergey; Venkatachalam, Anbu S.; Wang, Enliang; Weber, Peter M.; Jahnke, Till; Rudenko, Artem; Rolles, Daniel
Kustantaja: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Julkaisuvuosi: 2026
Lehti: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Vuosikerta: 28
Numero: 29
Aloitussivu: 18047
Lopetussivu: 18061
ISSN: 1463-9076
eISSN: 1463-9084
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6cp00502k
Julkaisun avoimuus kirjaamishetkellä: Ei avoimesti saatavilla
Julkaisukanavan avoimuus : Osittain avoin julkaisukanava
Verkko-osoite: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6cp00502k
Coulomb explosion imaging (CEI) is a powerful experimental technique that maps a molecule’s geometric structure onto the momenta of ionic molecular fragments produced by rapid multiple ionization. Here, we apply CEI induced by pulses from an X-ray free-electron laser in order to image and distinguish complex hydrocarbon isomers with the chemical formula C7H8: toluene, cycloheptatriene, and 1,6-heptadiyne. The measured fragment-ion momentum distributions show discernible differences between the three isomers and provide signatures of specific carbon and hydrogen sites in the molecule. In contrast to previous work, we demonstrate that distinct ’marker atoms’ are not strictly required for constructing a meaningful molecular frame of reference for the interpretation of the momentum-space data. Our work paves the way for tracking the ultrafast motion of nuclei during isomerization reactions in pure hydrocarbons.
Julkaisussa olevat rahoitustiedot:
We acknowledge the European XFEL in Schenefeld, Germany, for
the provision of X-ray free-electron laser beamtime at the SQS
instrument through proposal no. 2448 and thank the EuXFEL
staff for their assistance. This work was primarily supported by
the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division,
Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, US Department
of Energy, who funded KDB, MC, KC, AO, AR, and DRo through
grant no. DE-SC0020276, and HVSL, SP, and EW through grant
no. DE-FG02-86ER13491. XL and RF were supported by the Linac
Coherent Light Source (LCLS), SLAC National Accelerator Labora
tory, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of
Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Contract No. DE
AC02-76SF00515. ASV was supported by the National Science
Foundation grant no. PHYS-2409365. PMW and LM acknowledge
support by the National Science Foundation grant no. CHE
2309434. FT acknowledges funding by the Deutsche Forschungs
gemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)– Project
509471550, Emmy Noether Program. MI was partly supported
by the Bundesministerium fu¨r Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
under grant 13K22CHA. MI and MMacknowledges support by the
Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Advanced Imaging of Matter’’ of the
DFG—EXC 2056 and project ID 390715994
