Temporal mapping of photochemical reactions and molecular excited states with carbon specificity.
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| Abstract | :  Photochemical reactions are essential to a large number of important industrial and biological processes. A method for monitoring photochemical reaction kinetics and the dynamics of molecular excitations with spatial resolution within the active molecule would allow a rigorous exploration of the pathway and mechanism of photophysical and photochemical processes. Here we demonstrate that laser-excited muon pump-probe spin spectroscopy (photo-μSR) can temporally and spatially map these processes with a spatial resolution at the single-carbon level in a molecule with a pentacene backbone. The observed time-dependent light-induced changes of an avoided level crossing resonance demonstrate that the photochemical reactivity of a specific carbon atom is modified as a result of the presence of the excited state wavefunction. This demonstrates the sensitivity and potential of this technique in probing molecular excitations and photochemistry. | 
| Year of Publication | :  2017 | 
| Journal | :  Nature materials | 
| Volume | :  16 | 
| Issue | :  4 | 
| Number of Pages | :  467-473 | 
| ISSN Number | :  1476-1122 | 
| URL | :  https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4816 | 
| DOI | :  10.1038/nmat4816 | 
| Short Title | :  Nat Mater | 
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