Orientation of Chiral Molecules by External Electric Fields: Focus on Photodissociation Dynamics

Abstract

Molecular orientation is a fundamental requirement to study and control photoinitiated reactions. Experimental setups that make use of hexapolar electric filters combined with slice-ion imaging detectors were employed in these last years to investigate the photodissociation dynamics of chiral molecules. The final goal is the on-the-fly discrimination of oriented enantiomers, revealed by the different angular distributions in photofragment ion-imaging, as predicted from vector correlation studies. Here, we review experiments of photodissociation of oriented chiral molecules, with the aim of presenting limits emerging from these investigations and perspectives toward the achievement of the ultimate objective.

A Photodissociation dynamics study utilizing spatial orientation control of asymmetric top molecules

“…After passing through the hexapole, state-selected molecules will be led into the orienting field, which works as a quantization axis to define the spatial orientation of molecules. More details on the technique can be found in the references [7,18]. With hexapole state selector and an orienting field, the molecular permanent dipole moment d is oriented with respect to the orienting field vector O.…”