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Ursula Keller wins “Swiss Nobel” Marcel Benoist Prize- for pioneering work in ultrafast lasers

Farewell: the NCCR MUST ended - on June 30, 2022

MUST2022 Conference- a great success!

New scientific highlights- by MUST PIs Wörner, Chergui, and Richardson

FELs of Europe prize for Jeremy Rouxel- “Development or innovative use of advanced instrumentation in the field of FELs”

Ruth Signorell wins Doron prizefor pioneering contributions to the field of fundamental aerosol science

New FAST-Fellow Uwe Thumm at ETH- lectures on Topics in Femto- and Attosecond Science

International Day of Women and Girls in Science- SSPh asked female scientists about their experiences

New scientific highlight- by MUST PIs Milne, Standfuss and Schertler

EU XFEL Young Scientist Award for Camila Bacellar,beamline scientist and group leader of the Alvra endstation at SwissFEL

Prizes for Giulia Mancini and Rebeca Gomez CastilloICO/IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics & Ernst Haber 2021

Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to RESOLV Member Benjamin List- for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis

Hans Jakob Wörner invited to give the „New Horizons Solvay Lectures” - online, October 5, 12 and 19

Unusual keynote talk at an international scientific conference- Do photons show gender bias?

NCCR MUST at Scientifica 2021- Lightning, organic solar cells, and virtual molecules

Towards time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of ultrafine weakly-bound aerosol particles

Prof. Dr. Ruth Signorell
ETH Zurich
Laboratory for Physical Chemistry
Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 2
CH-8093 Zurich
Switzerland
Interaction of light with aerosol particles and nanoparticles
+41 44 633 4621
.

Project starts

1.4.2014

Project ends

31.12.2015

Goals

To combine femtosecond ultraviolet (UV) and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) single
photon excitation with a velocity map imaging (VMI) photoelectron spectrometer
to understand structural and dynamic properties of ultrafine aerosol particles.

Project
partners

Dr. Egor Chasovskikh
ETH Zurich
Laboratory for Physical Chemistry
Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 2
CH-8093 Zurich
Switzerland

Abstract

Nanometer-sized (<10 nm) weakly-bound aggregates built from molecules (referred to as “ultrafine aerosol particles”) play an important role in fundamental atmospheric processes, such as nucleation and cloud formation. Photoelectron spectroscopy provides information on the electronic structure of such nanosized species. We propose to study the dynamics of the first electronically excited state of sodium-dimethyl ether aggregates (Na(CH₃OCH₃)_n) as a function of the number of dimethyl ether solvent molecules using a femtoseconds pump-probe scheme and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. The goal is to compare the results for dimethyl ether solvent with corresponding time-resolved data for sodium-ammonia aggregates (Na(NH₃)_n) to clarify the potential influence of hydrogen bonding on the excited state dynamics. XUV single photon ionization of ultrafine aerosol particles consisting of volatiles, such as water, methanol, dimethyl ether, and ammonia, is accompanied by a fast intra- cluster proton transfer. Our general goal of this project is to study how this proton transfer manifests itself in angle-resolved photoelectron spectra.

Publications

Signorell, R., M. Goldmann, B. L. Yoder, A. Bodi, E. Chasovskikh, L. Lang and D. Luckhaus (2016). Nanofocusing, shadowing, and electron mean free path in the photoemission from aerosol droplets. Chem. Phys. Lett. 658: 1-6 (10.1016/j.cplett.2016.05.046) Signorell-2016 (1.04 MB) .
Gartmann, T. E., B. L. Yoder, E. Chasovskikh and R. Signorell (2017). Lifetimes and energetics of the first electronically excited states of NaH2O from time-resolved photoelectron imaging. Chemical Physics Letters (10.1016/j.cplett.2017.01.044) Gartmann-2017 (1.34 MB).
Luckhaus, D., Y.-i. Yamamoto, T. Suzuki and R. Signorell (2017). Genuine binding energy of the hydrated electron. Sci. Adv. 3. (10.1126/sciadv.1603224) Luckhaus-2017 (377 KB).
Gartmann, T.E., Ban, L., Yoder, B.L., Hartweg, S., Chasovskikh, E., and Signorell, R. (2019). Relaxation Dynamics and Genuine Properties of the Solvated Electron in Neutral Water Clusters. J Phys Chem Lett, 4777-4782. (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b01802)