The potential role of kelp forests on iodine speciation in coastal seawater

Funding: FCK would like to thank the TOTAL Foundation (Paris) and the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) for their support. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. JG acknowledges support from an SDSU Research Foundation Summer Undergraduate Research Award. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Making the best of mixed-field orientation of polar molecules: A recipe for achieving adiabatic dynamics in an electrostatic field combined with laser pulses

We have experimentally and theoretically investigated the mixed-field orientation of rotational-state-selected OCS molecules and we achieve strong degrees of alignment and orientation. The applied moderately intense nanosecond laser pulses are long enough to adiabatically align molecules. However, in combination with a weak dc electric field, the same laser pulses result in nonadiabatic dynamics in the mixed-field orientation. These observations are fully explained by calculations employing, both, adiabatic and non-adiabatic time-dependent models.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Free Radicals in Superfluid Liquid Helium Nanodroplets: A Pyrolysis Source for the Production of Propargyl Radical

An effusive pyrolysis source is described for generating a continuous beam of radicals under conditions appropriate for the helium droplet pick-up method. Rotationally resolved spectra are reported for the $\nu_1$ vibrational mode of the propargyl radical in helium droplets at 3322.15 cm$^{-1}$. Stark spectra are also recorded that allow for the first experimental determination of the permanent electric dipole moment of propargyl, namely -0.150 D and -0.148 D for ground and excited state, respectively, in good agreement with previously reported ab initio results of -0.14 D [1]. The infrared spectrum of the $\nu_1$ mode of propargyl-bromide is also reported. The future application of these methods for the production of novel radical clusters is discussed

Strongly driven quantum pendulum of the OCS molecule

We demonstrate and analyze a strongly driven quantum pendulum in the angular motion of stateselected and laser aligned OCS molecules. Raman-couplings during the rising edge of a 50-picosecond laser pulse create a wave packet of pendular states, which propagates in the confining potential formed by the polarizability interaction between the molecule and the laser field. This wave-packet dynamics manifests itself as pronounced oscillations in the degree of alignment with a laser-intensity dependent period.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

New perspectives in time-resolved laser-induced electron diffraction

Imaging the microscopic world in real space and real time is a grand challenge of science. In the landscape of time-resolved imaging techniques, laser-induced electron diffraction (LIED) has recently shown to be a promising candidate to push the frontiers of ultrafast molecular imaging. In this work, we review the main achievements of LIED research in terms of experimental results and advanced modelling. We also envision interesting perspectives toward the future advancement of time-resolved LIED imaging

Controlling rotation in the molecular-frame with an optical centrifuge

We computationally demonstrate a new method for coherently controlling the rotation-axis direction in asymmetric top molecules with an optical centrifuge. Appropriately chosen electric-field strengths and the centrifuge's acceleration rate allow to generate a nearly arbitrary rotational wavepacket. For D$_2$S and 2H-imidazole (C$_3$H$_4$N$_2$) we created wavepackets at large values of the rotational quantum number $J$ with the desired projections of the total angular momentum onto two of the molecules' principal axes of inertia. One application of the new method is three-dimensional alignment with a molecular axis aligned along the laser's wave vector, which is important for the three-dimensional imaging of molecules yet not accessible in standard approaches. The simultaneous orientation of the angular momentum in the laboratory frame and in the molecular frame could also be used in robust control of scattering experiments

Atome im Karussell

Detaillierte Untersuchungen nukleophiler Substitutionsreaktionen zeigen einen neuen elementaren Reaktionskanal auf

Characterizing and optimizing a laser-desorption molecular beam source

The design and characterization of a new laser-desorption molecular beam source, tailored for use in x-ray-free-electron-laser and ultrashort-pulse-laser imaging experiments, is presented. It consists of a single mechanical unit containing all source components, including the molecular-beam valve, the sample, and the fiber-coupled desorption laser, which is movable in five axes, as required for experiments at central facilities. Utilizing strong-field ionization, we characterize the produced molecular beam and evaluate the influence of desorption laser pulse energy, relative timing of valve opening and desorption laser, sample bar height, and which part of the molecular packet is probed on the sample properties. Strong-field ionization acts as a universal probe and allows to detect all species present in the molecular beam, and hence enables us to analyze the purity of the produced molecular beam, including molecular fragments. We present optimized experimental parameters for the production of the purest molecular beam, containing the highest yield of intact parent ions, which we find to be very sensitive to the placement of the desorbed-molecules plume within the supersonic expansion