Physics Commons^™

Attosecond Spectroscopy Probing Electron Correlation Dynamics, Alexander Heinecke Winney

Wayne State University Dissertations

Electrons are the driving force behind every chemical reaction. The exchange, ionization, or even relaxation of electrons is behind every bond broken or formed. According to the Bohr model of the atom, it takes an electron 150 as to orbit a proton[6]. With this as a unit time scale for an electron, it is clear that a pulse duration of several femtoseconds will not be sufficient to understanding electron dynamics. Our work demonstrates both technical and scientific achievements that push the boundaries of attosecond dynamics. TDSE studies show that amplification the yield of high harmonic generation (HHG) may be possible …

How Geometric Distortions Scatter Electronic Excitations In Conjugated Macromolecules: Towards Photoinduced Relaxation And Energy Transfer, Tian Shi

Wayne State University Dissertations

The exciton scattering (ES) approach has been developed to study electronic excitations in large branched conjugated molecules. It attributes excited states to standing waves in the quasi-one-dimensional system by assuming a quasi-particle picture of optical excitations. Tight binding models extend capability of the ES approach to investigate the exciton-phonon coupling.

The topological counting method plays a substantial role in constructing tight binding models. It depicts the ES equations as a topological intersection problem. Then, by applying the index theorem, we can get the total number of excited states, which is equal to the number of repeat units plus topological charges …

Fundamental Studies And Applications Of Strong Field Ionization, Lu Yan

Wayne State University Dissertations

In an intense laser field, atoms and molecules experience tunneling ionization directly to the continuum. We used this method to study several aspects and applications of strong field ionization (SFI) in atoms and molecules. One study used SFI to probe the photofragments produced by photodissociation using DC sliced imaging. The photodissociation mechanism of two polyatomic molecules (sulfur dioxide and nitromethane) were investigated. In a second study, we show the strong field ionization rate depends on the sign of the magnetic number distribution. We detect the signal of sequential double ionization of argon dications by a pump-probe method to investigate the …