Abstract
The concept of studying single molecules by rapidly destroying them in a Coulomb-explosion and detecting the momenta of all emerging fragments has appealed to scientists for many years. In principle, all the information about the spatial structure of a molecule is revealed in the fragments’ momentum distribution. This is illustrated in Fig. 22.1 for a diatomic molecule, which can be conveniently described by a one-dimensional potential energy curve as a function of the internuclear distance. To initiate a Coulomb-explosion all binding electrons have to be removed from the molecule with high efficiency before the atomic fragments start to move apart. In this case, the probability distribution of molecular bond lengths, which for a single molecular eigenstate is given by the rovibrational wave function squared, is mapped through the repulsive Coulomb potential into a distribution of kinetic energies of the two charged atomic fragments.
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Wester, R., Schwalm, D., Wolf, A., Zajfman, D. (2003). Coulomb-Explosion Imaging Studies of Molecular Relaxation and Rearrangement. In: Ullrich, J., Shevelko, V. (eds) Many-Particle Quantum Dynamics in Atomic and Molecular Fragmentation. Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics, vol 35. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08492-2_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08492-2_22
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