Demos.FemtoChem.Main

WavePacket demo examples: Laser control of chemical dynamics

Modern laser technology allows the creation of a wide range of tailored laser pulses to excite molecular systems and, in particular, to control the course and the outcome of chemical reactions. This has lead to the concept of "Femtochemistry", culminating in the 1999 Nobel Prize to A. H. Zewail. Using optimizally shaped laser pulses, it is possible to selectively induce dynamics that is inaccessible to "ordinary" (e.g. Gaussian) laser pulses.

Note also our Wiki page on reaction dynamics in the electronic ground state which serves as an introduction to reaction dynamics from the wave packet point of view.

Selective Bond Cleavage in HOD

The water isotope HOD is considered a prototypical system for laser control of chemical reactions. When electronically exciting the molecule, one of the bonds with the oxygen is broken, leaving behind an OH or OD radical behind. The goal is to exert isotope control, i. e. selectively cleave either the O-H or the O-D bond. Learn more ...

Two-photon wavepacket interferometry in Na₂

The basic idea of interferometry is to create a coherent superposition of a wavepacket whose properties we want to study, and a reference wavepacket. In some way, we manage to set them up such that they propagate independently of each other. When overlapping both of them later on, we get interference phenomena that can be used to deduce valuable information about the dynamics of the probed system. Learn more ...