Zeptosecond Birth Time Delay in Molecular Photoionization

Abstract

Photoionization is one of the fundamental light-matter interaction processes in which the absorption of a photon launches the escape of an electron. The time scale of the process poses many open questions. Experiments found time delays in the attosecond ($10^{-18}$ s) domain between electron ejection from different orbitals, electronic bands, or in different directions. Here, we demonstrate that across a molecular orbital the electron is not launched at the same time. The birth time rather depends on the travel time of the photon across the molecule, which is 247 zeptoseconds ($10^{-21}$ s) for the average bond length of H${}_2$. Using an electron interferometric technique, we resolve this birth time delay between electron emission from the two centers of the hydrogen molecule.

References in corpus (4)

• Photoionization in the time and frequency domain
• Attosecond-resolved photoionization of chiral molecules
• Observation of Photoion Backward Emission in Photoionization of He and N2
• Two-particle interference of electron pairs on a molecular level

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