X-ray induced Coulomb Explosion Imaging as Structural Probe of Complex Molecules

Speaker:  Rebecca Boll, XFEL 

Program Description:
Recording images of individual molecules with ultrashort exposure times was one of the driving forces for the development of X-ray FELs. We have recently used femtosecond soft X-ray pulses from the European XFEL to record snapshot images of a complex molecule with 11 atoms by Coulomb explosion imaging. The intriguingly clear momentum images allow us to identify each atom’s position in the molecule unambiguously, and to trace the rearrangement of charge within the molecule.

By combining our experimental results with molecular dynamics calculations, we can follow the charge-up dynamics of the molecule within the femtosecond X-ray pulse. These results can, in the next step, be employed to time-resolved imaging of molecular structure.