2016/09/30 by Maurice Tia, Martin Pitzer, Gregor Kastirke +38 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.atom-ph #physics.chem-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01000
published as J. Phys. Chem. Lett. (2017) 8 pp 2780-2786
arxiv created 2017/02/16 · arxiv updated 2017/06/16
Most large molecules are chiral in their structure: they exist as two enantiomers, which are mirror images of each other. Whereas the rovibronic sublevels of two enantiomers are almost identical, it turns out that the photoelectric effect is sensitive to the absolute configuration of the ionized enantiomer - an effect termed Photoelectron Circular Dichroism (PECD). Our comprehensive study demonstrates that the origin of PECD can be found in the molecular frame electron emission pattern connecting PECD to other fundamental photophysical effects as the circular dichroism in angular distributions (CDAD). Accordingly, orienting a chiral molecule in space enhances the PECD by a factor of about 10.