title: Extracting conformational structure information of benzene molecules via laser-induced electron diffraction.
abstract: We have measured the angular distributions of high energy photoelectrons of benzene molecules generated by intense infrared femtosecond laser pulses. These electrons arise from the elastic collisions between the benzene ions with the previously tunnel-ionized electrons that have been driven back by the laser field. Theory shows that laser-free elastic differential cross sections (DCSs) can be extracted from these photoelectrons, and the DCS can be used to retrieve the bond lengths of gas-phase molecules similar to the conventional electron diffraction method. From our experimental results, we have obtained the C-C and C-H bond lengths of benzene with a spatial resolution of about 10 pm. Our results demonstrate that laser induced electron diffraction (LIED) experiments can be carried out with the present-day ultrafast intense lasers already. Looking ahead, with aligned or oriented molecules, more complete spatial information of the molecule can be obtained from LIED, and applying LIED to probe photo-excited molecules, a "molecular movie" of the dynamic system may be created with sub-Ångström spatial and few-ten femtosecond temporal resolutions.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University , Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuta
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.affiliation: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Jilin University , Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chuncheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University , Manhattan, Kansas 66506-2604, USA.
authors.forename: Anh-Thu
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Le
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University , Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Misaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Okunishi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics, Jilin University , Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dajun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University , Manhattan, Kansas 66506-2604, USA.
authors.forename: C D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University , Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ueda