A tutorial review: probing molecular structure and dynamics with CEI and LIED

TL;DR

This tutorial review discusses advanced ultrafast techniques, CEI and LIED, for real-time visualization of molecular structures and dynamics with atomic resolution, crucial for understanding photo-induced chemical reactions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of CEI and LIED methods, including tools, analysis, and future perspectives, highlighting their capabilities in probing molecular dynamics.

Findings

CEI and LIED achieve sub-Ångstrom spatial resolution.

These techniques can track nuclear dynamics on femtosecond timescales.

The review discusses applications and future developments of both methods.

Abstract

Knowledge of the molecular structure is key to understanding the function of participating molecules in photo-induced chemical reactions. Visualizing the nuclear dynamics of a photochemical reaction requires an ultrafast measurement technique that can identify the location of atoms in molecules with atomic {\AA}ngstrom spatial resolution evolving on the nuclear (i.e. hundreds of femtosecond) timescale. Coulomb explosion imaging (CEI) and laser-induced electron diffraction (LIED) offer the required sub-{\AA}ngstrom spatial and tens of femtosecond temporal resolution to track in real-time changes in the molecular structure. In this tutorial review, details of the tools, analysis procedures, exemplary previous results and future perspectives of both CEI and LIED techniques are described.