Monitoring the evolution of relative product populations at early times during a photochemical reaction
Creators
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Figueira Nunes, Joao Pedro1
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Hoffmann, Matthias2
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Attar, Andrew2
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Shen, Xiaozhe2
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Luo, Duan2
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Muvva, Sri Bhavya1
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Rudenko, Artem3
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Venkatachalam, Anbu3
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Boll, Rebecca4
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Wang, Xijie2
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Xiong, Yanwei1
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Saha, Sajib Kumar1
- Borne, Kurtis3
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Bhattacharyya, Surjendu3
- Wilkin, Kyle1
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Hansen, Christopher5
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Yang, Jie2
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Forbes, Ruaridh2
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Ibele, Lea M.6
- Rouzee, Arnaud7
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Centurion, Martin1
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Lin, Ming-Fu2
- Goff, Nathan8
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Weathersby, Stephen2
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Erk, Benjamin9
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Wolf, Thomas2
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Pathak, Shashank3
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Ware, Matthew2
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Reid, Alex2
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Ingle, Rebecca10
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Ashfold, Michael11
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Holland, David12
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Rolles, Daniel3
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Curchod, Basile11
- 1. University of Nebraska–Lincoln
- 2. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- 3. Kansas State University
- 4. European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser
- 5. University of New South Wales
- 6. University of Paris-Saclay
- 7. Max-Born-Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy
- 8. Brown University
- 9. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
- 10. University College London
- 11. University of Bristol
- 12. Daresbury Laboratory
Description
Identifying multiple rival reaction products and transient species formed during ultrafast photochemical reactions and determining their time-evolving relative populations are key steps towards understanding and predicting photochemical outcomes. Yet, most contemporary ultrafast studies struggle with clearly identifying and quantifying competing molecular structures/species amongst the emerging reaction products. Here, we show that mega-electronvolt ultrafast electron diffraction in combination with ab initio molecular dynamics calculations offers a unique route to determine time-resolved populations of the various isomeric products formed after UV (266 nm) excitation of the five-membered heterocyclic molecule thiophenone. This strategy reveals an unexpectedly high (~50%) yield of an episulfide isomer containing a strained 3-membered ring within ~1 ps at early times and rapid interconversions between the rival photoproducts.