Spatiotemporal imaging of valence electron motion
Abstract
Electron motion on the (sub-)femtosecond time scale constitutes the fastest response in many natural phenomena such as light-induced phase transitions and chemical reactions. Whereas static electron densities in single molecules can be imaged in real-space using scanning tunnelling and atomic force microscopy, probing real-time electron motion inside molecules requires ultrafast laser pulses. Here, we demonstrate an all-optical approach to imaging an ultrafast valence electron wave packet in real-time with a time-resolution of a few femtoseconds. We employ a pump-probe-deflect scheme that allows us to prepare an ultrafast wave packet \textit{via} strong-field ionization and directly image the resulting charge oscillations in the residual ion. This approach extends and overcomes limitations in laser-induced orbital imaging and may enable the real-time imaging of electron dynamics following photoionization such as charge migration and charge transfer processes.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.03739,
title = {Spatiotemporal imaging of valence electron motion},
author = {Matthias Kübel and Zack Dube and Andrei Yu. Naumov and David M. Villeneuve and Paul B. Corkum and André Staudte},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.03739},
year = {2019}
}