Advances in FEL technologies have contributed remarkably to various scientific fields over
the past decade, and ultrafast molecular dynamics is no exception. The ability to probe …

Elementary events that determine photochemical outcomes and molecular functionalities
happen on the femtosecond and subfemtosecond timescales. Among the most ubiquitous …

Following structural dynamics in real time is a fundamental goal towards a better
understanding of chemical reactions. Recording snapshots of individual molecules with …

Simultaneous observation of nuclear and electronic motion is crucial for a complete
understanding of molecular dynamics in excited electronic states. It is challenging for a …

Fundamental studies of chemical reactions often consider the molecular dynamics along a
reaction coordinate using a calculated or suggested potential energy surface,,,–. But fully …

X-ray diffraction is routinely used for structure determination of stationary molecular samples.
Modern X-ray photon sources, eg, from free-electron lasers, enable us to add temporal …

Directly imaging structural dynamics involving hydrogen atoms by ultrafast diffraction
methods is complicated by their low scattering cross sections. Here we demonstrate that …

Photoinduced isomerization reactions lie at the heart of many chemical processes in nature.
The mechanisms of such reactions are determined by a delicate interplay of coupled …

Ultrashort x-ray pulses from free-electron lasers can efficiently charge up and trigger the full
fragmentation of molecules. By coincident detection of up to five ions resulting from rapid …

When a molecule interacts with light, its electrons can absorb energy from the
electromagnetic field by rapidly rearranging their positions. This constitutes the first step of …