Extracting conformational structure information of benzene molecules via laser-induced electron diffraction.

We have measured the angular distributions of high energy photoelectrons of benzene molecules generated by intense infrared femtosecond laser pulses. These electrons arise from the elastic collisions between the benzene ions with the previously tunnel-ionized electrons that have been driven back by the laser field. Theory shows that laser-free elastic differential cross sections (DCSs) can be extracted from these photoelectrons, and the DCS can be used to retrieve the bond lengths of gas-phase molecules similar to the conventional electron diffraction method.

Extracting electron-ion differential scattering cross sections for partially aligned molecules by laser-induced rescattering photoelectron spectroscopy.

We extract large-angle elastic differential cross sections (DCSs) for electrons scattering from partially aligned O2+ and CO2+ molecules using rescattering photoelectrons generated by infrared laser pulses. The extracted DCSs are in good agreement with those calculated theoretically, demonstrating that accurate DCSs for electron-ion scattering can be extracted from the laser-induced rescattering spectra, thus paving the way for dynamic imaging of chemical reactions by rescattering photoelectron spectroscopy.