Probing molecular chirality on a sub-femtosecond timescale - CNRS - Centre national de la recherche scientifique Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Nature Physics Année : 2015

Probing molecular chirality on a sub-femtosecond timescale

B. Fabre
Y. Mairesse

Résumé

Chiral molecules that are non-superimposable mirror images of each other, known as enantiomers, have identical chemical and physical properties unless they interact with another chiral entity, such as chiral light. Chiroptical effects arising from such interactions are used to detect enantiomers in mixtures and to induce enantioselective synthesis and catalysis. Chiroptical effects often arise from the interplay between light-induced electric- and magnetic-dipole transitions in a molecule and evolve on ultrafast electronic timescales. Here we use high-harmonic generation from a randomly oriented gasof molecules subjected to an intense laser field, to probe chiral interactions on these sub-femtosecond timescales. We show that a slight disparity in the laser-driven electron dynamics in the two enantiomers is recorded and amplified by several orders of magnitude in the harmonic spectra. Our work showsthat chiroptical detection can go beyond detecting chiral structure to resolving and controlling chiral dynamics on electronic timescales

Dates et versions

hal-01211495 , version 1 (05-10-2015)

Identifiants

Citer

Raluca Cireasa, A. E. Boguslavskiy, B. Pons, M. C. H. Wong, D. Descamps, et al.. Probing molecular chirality on a sub-femtosecond timescale. Nature Physics, 2015, 11 (8), pp.654-658. ⟨10.1038/nphys3369⟩. ⟨hal-01211495⟩
124 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More