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    Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy of the cyclobutane thymine dimer repair mechanism: A computational study
    (Washington, DC : American Chemical Society, 2014) Ando, H.; Fingerhut, B.P.; Dorfman, K.E.; Biggs, J.D.; Mukamel, S.
    Cyclobutane thymine dimer, one of the major lesions in DNA formed by exposure to UV sunlight, is repaired in a photoreactivation process, which is essential to maintain life. The molecular mechanism of the central step, i.e., intradimer C-C bond splitting, still remains an open question. In a simulation study, we demonstrate how the time evolution of characteristic marker bands (C=O and C=C/C-C stretch vibrations) of cyclobutane thymine dimer and thymine dinucleotide radical anion, thymidylyl(3′→5′)-thymidine, can be directly probed with femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS). We construct a DFT(M05-2X) potential energy surface with two minor barriers for the intradimer C5-C′5 splitting and a main barrier for the C6-C′6 splitting, and identify the appearance of two C5=C6 stretch vibrations due to the C6-C′6 splitting as a spectroscopic signature of the underlying bond splitting mechanism. The sequential mechanism shows only absorptive features in the simulated FSRS signals, whereas the fast concerted mechanism shows characteristic dispersive line shapes. (Figure Presented).
  • Item
    Probing multiphoton light-induced molecular potentials
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2020) Kübel, M.; Spanner, M.; Dube, Z.; Naumov, A.Yu.; Chelkowski, S.; Bandrauk, A.D.; Vrakking, M.J.J.; Corkum, P.B.; Villeneuve, D.M.; Staudte, A.
    The strong coupling between intense laser fields and valence electrons in molecules causes distortions of the potential energy hypersurfaces which determine the motion of the nuclei and influence possible reaction pathways. The coupling strength varies with the angle between the light electric field and valence orbital, and thereby adds another dimension to the effective molecular potential energy surface, leading to the emergence of light-induced conical intersections. Here, we demonstrate that multiphoton couplings can give rise to complex light-induced potential energy surfaces that govern molecular behavior. In the laser-induced dissociation of H2+, the simplest of molecules, we measure a strongly modulated angular distribution of protons which has escaped prior observation. Using two-color Floquet theory, we show that the modulations result from ultrafast dynamics on light-induced molecular potentials. These potentials are shaped by the amplitude, duration and phase of the dressing fields, allowing for manipulating the dissociation dynamics of small molecules.