Investigation of intermolecular Coulombic decay in carbon-based molecular clusters upon low-energy electron-impact

• Applicant: Dr. Woon Yong Baek, since 7/2023
• Subject Area: Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry ; Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 458472603

The primary goal of this project is to investigate the basic atomic and molecular processes involved in the interaction of low-energy (10 - 100 eV) electrons (LEE) with molecular aggregates (clusters) of biological relevance. In particular, we study outer-valence and inner-valence ionization and the subsequent ultra-fast energy dissipation processes involving neighboring molecules via intermolecular Coulombic decay (ICD) process. Although not well recognized these processes play an important role in radiation damage of biological tissue following the interaction with ionizing radiation. Recently we could demonstrate the existence of ICD in a hydrogen bonded dimer consisting of water and tetrahydrofuran (THF). (Ren, X. et al., 2018, Nature Physics 14, 1062). ) THF is a model system for deoxyribose in DNA. The logical next steps and, thus, the central goals of the present application are to proof the existence of ICD in purely carbon based organic molecular clusters. Moreover, to assess their relevance in radiation damage the relative contribution of ICD processes to molecular ionization will be measured. The main target species studied will span different organic molecules and include benzene dimers (C6H6)2 and pyrimidine dimers (C4H4N2)2. This project applies energy resolved electron impact ionization and momentum resolved multi-particle detection techniques (reaction microscopes). The targets are produced in seeded supersonic jet expansions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Privatdozent Alexander Dorn, Ph.D.
• Ehemalige Antragsteller: Dr. Volker Dangendorf, from 7/2021 until 7/2023; Xueguang Ren, Ph.D., until 6/2021