Journal Articles Nature Communications Year : 2015

XUV excitation followed by ultrafast non-adiabatic relaxation in PAH molecules as a femto-astrochemistry experiment

Abstract

Highly excited molecular species are at play in the chemistry of interstellar media and are involved in the creation of radiation damage in a biological tissue. Recently developed ultrashort extreme ultraviolet light sources offer the high excitation energies and ultrafast time-resolution required for probing the dynamics of highly excited molecular states on femtosecond (fs) (1 fs ¼ 10 À 15 s) and even attosecond (as) (1 as ¼ 10 À 18 s) timescales. Here we show that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) undergo ultrafast relaxation on a few tens of femtoseconds timescales, involving an interplay between the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom. Our work reveals a general property of excited radical PAHs that can help to elucidate the assignment of diffuse interstellar absorption bands in astrochemistry, and provides a benchmark for the manner in which coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics determines reaction pathways in large molecules following extreme ultraviolet excitation.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
ncomms8909.pdf (687) Télécharger le fichier
Origin Publication funded by an institution

Dates and versions

hal-02307271 , version 1 (04-02-2021)

Licence

Identifiers

Cite

Alexandre Marciniak, V. Despre, Thomas Barillot, A. Rouzee, M. C. E. Galbraith, et al.. XUV excitation followed by ultrafast non-adiabatic relaxation in PAH molecules as a femto-astrochemistry experiment. Nature Communications, 2015, 6, pp.7909. ⟨10.1038/ncomms8909⟩. ⟨hal-02307271⟩
40 View
55 Download

Altmetric

Share

More