| Home > Documents in process > Visualizing the strong field–induced molecular breakup of C60 via x-ray diffraction |
| Journal Article | PUBDB-2025-05202 |
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2025
Assoc.
Washington, DC [u.a.]
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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.1126/sciadv.adz1900
Abstract: Laser-driven dynamics in polyatomic molecules poses a complex many-body problem. Understanding intense light-matter interaction is crucial for steering intramolecular quantum dynamical processes. Here, we record time-resolved x-ray diffraction images of molecules during and after their interaction with intense near-infrared fields, giving direct access to structural changes of the molecules and their fragmentation in real time. Tuning the intensity of the excitation pulses, we uncover a transition from a weak-field regime of excited but stable molecules to a high-field regime dominated by Coulomb explosion. In the transition region, the molecules expand by up to 50% of their initial size within just 140 fs, with major fragmentation only setting in afterward. This work demonstrates that x-ray diffractive imaging is capable of retrieving time-resolved structural information of large molecules reshaped by intense laser fields. Laser-driven fragmentation is a first step toward observing molecular processes modified by laser fields of increasing intensity.
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