TY  - JOUR
AU  - Saribal, Cem
AU  - Owens, Alec
AU  - Yachmenev, Andrey
AU  - Küpper, Jochen
TI  - Detecting handedness of spatially oriented molecules by Coulomb explosion imaging
JO  - The journal of chemical physics
VL  - 154
IS  - 7
SN  - 1089-7690
CY  - Melville, NY
PB  - American Institute of Physics
M1  - PUBDB-2021-01390
SP  - 071101
PY  - 2021
AB  - We present a new technique for detecting chirality in the gas phase: Chiral molecules are spatially aligned in three dimensions by a moderately strong elliptically polarized laser field. The momentum distributions of the charged fragments, produced by laser-induced Coulomb explosion, show distinct three-dimensional orientation of the enantiomers when the laser polarization ellipse is rotated by a non-right angle with respect to the norm vector of the detector plane. The resulting velocity-map-image asymmetry is directly connected to the enantiomeric excess and to the absolute handedness of molecules. We demonstrated our scheme computationally for camphor (C10H16O), with its methyl groups as marker fragments, using quantum-mechanical simulations geared toward experimentally feasible conditions. Computed sensitivity to enantiomeric excess is comparable to other modern chiroptical approaches. The present method can be readily optimized for any chiral molecule with an anisotropic polarizability tensor by adjusting the polarization state and intensity profile of the laser field.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:33607914
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000630521200001
DO  - DOI:10.1063/5.0029792
UR  - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/456183
ER  -