Department of Physics and Astronomy: Publications and Other Research
Date of this Version
5-2009
Abstract
We experimentally demonstrate ultrafast electron diffraction from transiently aligned molecules in the absence of external (aligning) fields. A sample of aligned molecules is generated through photodissociation with femtosecond laser pulses, and the diffraction pattern is captured by probing the sample with picosecond electron pulses shortly after dissociation—before molecular rotation causes the alignment to vanish. In our experiments the alignment decays with a time constant of 2.6 ± 1.2 ps.
Comments
Published in PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 102, 213001 (2009). Copyright (c) 2009 The American Physical Society. Used by permission.