Monitoring the evolution of relative product populations at early times during a photochemical reaction

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.12482
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: J. Pedro F. Nunes; Lea M. Ibele; Shashank Pathak; Andrew Attar; Surjendu Bhattach...; Rebecca Boll; Kurtis Borne; Martin Centurion; Benjamin Erk; Ming‐Fu Lin; Ruaridh Forbes; N. A. Goff; Christopher S. Ha...; Matthias C. Hoffmann; D.M.P. Holland; Rebecca A. Ingle; Duan Luo; Sri Bhavya Muvva; Alexander H. Reid; Arnaud Rouzée; Artem Rudenko; Sajib Kumar Saha; Xiaozhe Shen; Anbu Selvam Venka...; Xijie Wang; Matt R. Ware; Stephen Weathersby; Kyle Wilkin; Thomas Wolf; Yanwei Xiong; Jie Yang; Michael N. R. Ash...; Daniel Rolles; Basile F. E. Curchod
• Keywords: Photoexcitation

Identifying multiple rival reaction products and transient species formed during ultrafast photochemical reactions determining their time-evolving relative populations are key steps towards understanding predicting outcomes. Yet, most contemporary studies struggle with clearly identifying quantifying competing molecular structures/species amongst the emerging products. Here, we show that mega-electronvolt electron diffraction in combination ab initio dynamics calculations offer a powerful route to time-resolved of various isomeric after UV (266 nm) excitation five-membered heterocyclic molecule 2(5H)-thiophenone. This strategy provides experimental validation predicted high (~50%) yield an episulfide isomer containing strained 3-membered ring within ~1 ps photoexcitation highlights rapidity interconversion between highly vibrationally excited photoproducts ground electronic state.