SAMOP 2023 – scientific programme

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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik

MO 4: Ultrafast Dynamics I (joint session MO/A)

MO 4.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 7, 2023, 11:00–11:30, F102

Revealing chiral charge migration in UV-excited molecules — •Vincent Wanie¹, Etienne Bloch², Erik P. Månsson¹, Lorenzo Colaizzi^1,3, Sergey Ryabchuk³, Krishna Saraswathula^1,3, Andrea Trabattoni^1,4, Valérie Blanchet², Nadia Ben Amor⁵, Marie-Catherine Heitz⁵, Yann Mairesse², Bernard Pons², and Francesca Calegari^1,3 — ¹DESY, Germany — ²Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - CEA, CELIA, France — ³Universität Hamburg, Germany — ⁴Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany — ⁵CNRS, France

Electron-driven charge migration occurs following photoexcitation of a molecule, leading to a charge density traveling rapidly along the molecular structure. We report our most recent works devoted to the investigation of charge migration in neutral molecules and its applications to manipulate the outcome of photochemical and photophysical processes. We exploited our new light source delivering few-femtosecond UV pulses in order to photoexcite below the ionization threshold and trigger electronic dynamics in chiral methyl-lactate. We used time-resolved photoelectron circular dichroism (TR-PECD) to image electronic coherences driving charge migration and disclose - for the first time - their impact on the molecular chiral response, allowing for an ultrafast chiroptical switching effect where the amplitude and direction of the photoelectron current generated by PECD can be controlled on a sub-10 fs timescale. The results provide important perspectives to exploit charge-directed reactivity for controlling the chiral properties of matter at the molecular scale. [1] V. Wanie et al., 'Ultrafast chiroptical switching in UV-excited molecules,' (under review, 2022).