Mapping atomic motions with ultrabright electrons: the chemists' gedanken experiment enters the lab frame

Abstract

This review documents the development of high-bunch charge electron pulses with sufficient combined spatiotemporal resolution and intensity to literally light up atomic motions. This development holds promise in coming to a first-principles understanding of diverse problems, ranging from molecular reaction dynamics and structure-function correlations in biology to cooperativity in strongly correlated electron-lattice systems. It is now possible to directly observe the key modes involved in propagating structural changes and the enormous reduction in dimensionality that occurs in barrier crossing regions, which is central to chemistry and makes reaction mechanisms transferrable concepts. This information will help direct theoretical advances that will undoubtedly lead to generalized principles with respect to scaling relations in structural dynamics that will bridge chemistry to biology. In this quest, the limitations and future directions for further development are discussed to give an overview of the present status of the field.