Electronic cascades in microsolvated clusters initiated by resonant absorption of X-ray radiation

• Applicant: Dr. Kirill Gokhberg
• Subject Area: Physical Chemistry of Molecules, Liquids and Interfaces, Biophysical Chemistry ; Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: from 2012 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 203306641

In this project we intend to study the interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) of ionised-excited states produced in the resonant Auger (RA) decay. We plan as a first step to obtain a complete theoretical description of this RA-ICD cascade in simple experimentally amenable systems such as clusters of rare-gas atoms. The following investigations will focus on studying the RA-ICD cascade in molecules embedded in an environment. Small clusters of diatomics such as (CO)n comprise a class of model systems suitable for the initial study. Investigation of ICD after RA process in larger polyatomics is the further goal of this project. Apart from investigating a new fundamental process we intend this study to be an important step towards an integrated analytical technique in which the local RA decay will probe the electronic properties of a selected molecule and the interatomic decay of the resulting ionised-excited states will simultaneously probe its immediate environment. In particular, by creating different parent core-excited states we can change in a controlled manner the population of the ionised-excited states produced in the RA process and consequently we can probe the neighbouring species in a selective way. The importance of RA cascades in producing DNA strand breaks and its potential use in biomedical applications adds an important aspect to our study.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1789: Intermolecular and Interatomic Coulombic Decay
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Lorenz S. Cederbaum