Time-resolved Intramolecular Photoelectron Diffraction (TIPD) of Ions in the Gas-phase

Being able to probe structural (electronic and geometric) change on the timescale of atomic motion (femtoseconds) offers the most direct route to understanding the structure-function relationship in chemistry, which underpins much of modern technology. Here, we propose the conceptually novel method, Time-resolved Intramolecular Photoelectron Diffraction (TIPD), in which photoelectrons are

diffracted from negatively-charged functional groups in a mass-selected gas-phase polyanion. The measured interferogram contains structural information about the location of charge-sites relative to the molecular orbital from which an electron is detached. It can be measured with sub-100 fs resolution to enable real-time probing of photoinduced processes including charge-transfer

processes and structural transformations in, for example, proteins and conducting polymers.