Conformational effects in photoelectron circular dichroism

Abstract

Photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) is a novel type of spectroscopy, which presents surprising sensitivity to conformational effects in chiral systems. While classical photoelectron spectroscopy mainly responds to conformational effects in terms of energy level shifts, PECD provides a rich and detailed response to tiny changes in electronic and structural properties by means of the intensity dispersion of the circular dichroism as a function of photoelectron kinetic energy. In this work, the basics of PECD will be outlined, emphasizing the role of interference from the [Formula: see text] outgoing partial wave of the photoelectron in the PECD transition matrix element, which is responsible for the extreme sensitivity to conformational effects. Examples using molecular systems and interfaces will shed light on the powerful application of PECD to classical conformational effects such as group substitution, isomerism, conformer population and clustering. Moreover, the PECD results will be reported in challenging new fields where conformations play a key role, such as vibrational effects, transient chirality and time- resolved experiments. To date, PECD has mostly been based on synchrotron radiation facilities, but it also has a future as a table-top lab experiment by means of multiphoton ionization. An important application of PECD as an analytical tool will be reported. The aim of this review is to illustrate that in PECD, the presence of conformational effects is essential for understanding a wide range of effects from a new perspective, making it different from classical spectroscopy.