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XUV excitation followed by ultrafast non-adiabatic relaxation in PAH molecules as a femto-astrochemistry experiment
2015, Marciniak, A., Despré, V., Barillot, T., Rouzée, A., Galbraith, M.C.E., Klei, J., Yang, C.-H., Smeenk, C.T.L., Loriot, V., Nagaprasad Reddy, S., Tielens, A.G.G.M., Mahapatra, S., Kuleff, A.I., Vrakking, M.J.J., Lépine, F.
Highly excited molecular species are at play in the chemistry of interstellar media and are involved in the creation of radiation damage in a biological tissue. Recently developed ultrashort extreme ultraviolet light sources offer the high excitation energies and ultrafast time-resolution required for probing the dynamics of highly excited molecular states on femtosecond (fs) (1 fs=10−15s) and even attosecond (as) (1 as=10−18 s) timescales. Here we show that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) undergo ultrafast relaxation on a few tens of femtoseconds timescales, involving an interplay between the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom. Our work reveals a general property of excited radical PAHs that can help to elucidate the assignment of diffuse interstellar absorption bands in astrochemistry, and provides a benchmark for the manner in which coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics determines reaction pathways in large molecules following extreme ultraviolet excitation.
Observation of correlated electronic decay in expanding clusters triggered by near-infrared fields
2015, Schütte, B., Arbeiter, M., Fennel, T., Jabbari, G., Kuleff, A.I., Vrakking, M.J.J., Rouzée, A.
When an excited atom is embedded into an environment, novel relaxation pathways can emerge that are absent for isolated atoms. A well-known example is interatomic Coulombic decay, where an excited atom relaxes by transferring its excess energy to another atom in the environment, leading to its ionization. Such processes have been observed in clusters ionized by extreme-ultraviolet and X-ray lasers. Here, we report on a correlated electronic decay process that occurs following nanoplasma formation and Rydberg atom generation in the ionization of clusters by intense, non-resonant infrared laser fields. Relaxation of the Rydberg states and transfer of the available electronic energy to adjacent electrons in Rydberg states or quasifree electrons in the expanding nanoplasma leaves a distinct signature in the electron kinetic energy spectrum. These so far unobserved electron-correlation-driven energy transfer processes may play a significant role in the response of any nano-scale system to intense laser light.