Séminaire LCPMR | Olle Björneholm "Core excitation and decay dynamics of ions in water"

X-ray-induced core excitation and decay dynamics of isolated atoms is nowadays relatively well understood.How are such processes affected by an aqueous environment? In this presentation, I will discuss some recent studies on how solvating water molecules may participate in non-local processes, such as Intermolecular Coulombic Decay (ICD), Radiative Charge Transfer (RCT), and Electron Transfer Mediated Decay (ETMD) [1], in various stages of the core-hole excitation and decay. This includes results for ultrafast electron dynamics before the core-hole decay, both ICD [2] and RCT processes in the core-hole decay, as well as ETMD processes taking place in the highly charged ion formed by Auger decay [3], for neon-like Na+, Mg2+, and Al3+ions in water.

[1] Interatomic and Intermolecular Coulombic Decay, T. Jahnke et al., Chem. Rev. 120, 20, 11295 (2020)
[2] Probing Aqueous Ions with Non-local Auger Relaxation, G. Gopakumar et al., Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 24, 8661 (2022)
[3] Radiation damage by extensive local water ionization from two-step electron transfer-mediated decay of solvated ions, G. Gopakumar et al., Nature Chemistry 15, 1408 (2023)