Ultrafast electron dynamics

Bonn M, Denzler DN, Eunk S, Wolf M. 2000. Ultrafast electron dynamics at metal surfaces Competition between electron-phonon coupling and hot-electron transport. Phys Rev B 61 1101-1105. 

Figure 6.2 Steering of photochemical reactions by coherent control of ultrafast electron dynamics in molecules by shaped femtosecond laser pulses. Ultrafast excitation of electronic target states in molecules launches distinct nuclear dynamics, which eventually lead to specific outcomes of the photochemical reaction. The ability to switch efficiently between different electronic target channels, optimally achieved by turning only a single control knob on the control field, provides an enhanced flexibility in the triggering of photochemical events, such as fragmentation, excited state vibration, and isomerization.

A negative chirped pulse is shown in Figure 6.4c. Experiments and theoretical studies on coherent control of ultrafast electron dynamics by intense chirped laser pulses will be discussed in Sections 6.3.2.3 and 633.2. 

Because electrons are much lighter than nuclei, they move much faster. The intrinsic temporal regime for valence bond electron dynamics is the few femtosecond to several hundred attosecond timescale. Therefore, efficient and accurate control of electron dynamics requires extreme precision regarding the control field. Commonly attosecond techniques are considered to be the appropriate tools for efficient manipulation of electron motions [61-63, 111, 112]. However, attosecond pulses in the XUV region are not suited for efficient valence bond excitation (see Section 6.1). Here we demonstrate that ultrafast electron dynamics are controlled efficiently on the sub-10 as timescale employing a pair of femtosecond laser pulses with a temporal separation controllable down to zeptosecond precision [8]. 

Nisoli, M., Stagira, S.. De Silvestri, S., Stella, A., Tognini, P., Cheyssac, P., Kofman, R. Ultrafast electronic dynamics in solid and liquid gallium nanoparticles. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 3575-3578 (1997)... 

Voisin, C., Del Fatti, N., Christofilos, D., Vallee, F. Ultrafast electron dynamics and optical nonlinearities in metal nanoparticles. J. Phys. Chem. B 105, 2264-2280 (2001)... 

Figure 11. Schematic representation of sequential events of an SNj ionization reaction in a polar liquid. Elementary events involve contact ion pairs (CIP) and solvent-separated ion pairs (SSIP). In ionic aqueous solutions, the influence of different ion-pair configurations on early electron-transfer trajectories can be considered through the investigation of ultrafast electronic dynamics and radical ion-...

M. Nest, F. Remade, R.D. Levine, Pump and probe ultrafast electron dynamics in LiH A computational study. New J. Phys. 10 (2008) 025019. 

Thus, information on attosecond jt-electron rotation can be obtained by detecting femtosecond molecular vibrations with spectroscopy, although this type of detection is not a direct imaging of ultrafast electron dynamics. 

Hertel T, Knoesel E, Wolf M, Ertl G (1996) Ultrafast electron dynamics at Cu(ll 1) response of an electron gas to optical excitation. Phys Rev Lett 76 535-538... 

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