Attosecond Coherent Electron Motion in Photoionized Molecular Isomers

Molecular structure, such as substitute location, can have a strong effect on the degree of localization of the electronic wavefunction. It is not well studied how changes in a molecule's electronic orbitals resulting from different molecular structures impacts coherent electronic motion. In this experiment, we investigated the effect of substitute location on attosecond coherent charge motion in the para- and meta-isomers of aminophenol. We used attosecond x-ray pump-probe methodology to probe the charge density in the vicinity of the oxygen atom by measuring the near-edge absorption of the probe pulse. In both isomers, we observed a transient absorption feature which rapidly decayed in the first few femtoseconds.