Ana Miguel Ferreira de Oliveira e Sousa

Doctoral project

Real-time investigation of electron dynamics in chiral molecules

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has a key role in a vast range of scientific areas, including light-harvesting technologies, atmospheric chemistry and biochemistry. Our research team has recently developed a number of light sources delivering few-femtosecond UV pulses to reproduce ultrafast molecular processes that occur in nature and to track in real-time their underlying mechanisms. In this project, a high repetition rate UV light source will be used for real-time investigation of electron dynamics in gas phase chiral molecules. Time-resolved circular dichroism (TR-PECD) and time-resolved Photoexcitation Circular Dichroism (TR-PXCD) will be used to unravel the role of electron dynamics on the chiral response of the molecule with few-femtosecond/attosecond time resolution. Small chiral systems will be investigated in order to develop new schemes to manipulate the outcome of enantioselective chemical processes via charge-directed reactivity. Complementary experiments using X-ray sources (FELs and synchrotrons) are foreseen to gain site selectivity in the investigation of the chiral molecular response.