Diffractive Imaging of Coherent Nuclear Motion in Isolated Molecules
  Observing the motion of the nuclear wavepackets during a molecular reaction, in both space and time, is crucial for understanding and controlling the outcome of photoinduced chemical reactions. We have imaged the motion of a vibrational wavepacket in isolated iodine molecules using ultrafast electron diffraction with relativistic electrons. The time-varying interatomic distance was measured with a precision 0.07 {\AA} and temporal resolution of 230 fs full-width at half-maximum (FWHM). The method is not only sensitive to the position but also the shape of the nuclear wavepacket. 
Jie Yang, Markus Guehr, Xiaozhe Shen, Renkai Li, Theodore Vecchione,   Ryan Coffee, Jeff Corbett, Alan Fry, Nick Hartmann, C...
physics.chem-ph