Gas-phase structural isomer identification by Coulomb explosion of aligned molecules

Abstract

The gas-phase structures of four difluoroiodobenzene and two dihydroxybromobenzene isomers were identified by correlating the emission angles of atomic fragment ions created following femtosecond laser-induced Coulomb explosion. The structural determinations were facilitated by confining the most polarizable axis of each molecule to the detection plane prior to the Coulomb explosion event using one-dimensional laser-induced adiabatic alignment. For a molecular target consisting of two difluoroiodobenzene isomers, each constituent structure could additionally be singled out and distinguished.

13 pages, 4 figures. Published as a communication in the Journal of Chemical Physics

References in corpus (6)

• Manipulating the torsion of molecules by strong laser pulses
• Control and femtosecond time-resolved imaging of torsion in a chiral molecule
• Ionization of 1D and 3D oriented asymmetric top molecules by intense circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses
• Coulomb explosion imaging of concurrent CH${}_2$BrI photodissociation dynamics
• Probing the UV-Induced Photodissociation of CH${}_{\text{3}}$I and C${}_{\text{6}}$H${}_{\text{3}}$F${}_{\text{2}}$I with Femtosecond Time-Resolved Coulomb Explosion Imaging at FLASH
• Alignment, Orientation, and Coulomb Explosion of Difluoroiodobenzene Studied with the Pixel Imaging Mass Spectrometry (PImMS) Camera

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Spatiotemporal imaging of valence electron motion
• Alignment of the CS${}_2$ Dimer Embedded in Helium Droplets Induced by a Circularly Polarized Laser Pulse