26th Australian Institute of Physics Congress and the Australian and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics

The influence of chemical structure on the electronic structure of molecular systems.

Not scheduled

20m

Belinda Hutchinson Building (The University of Sydney )

Poster AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Description

The evolution and conservation of orbital symmetry is important in understanding stereochemical reactions [1]. We are therefore interested in studying how orbital structure evolves with changes to the chemical structure and the motion of the constituent atoms. Here we use experimental and theoretical techniques based on the orbital imaging capability of electron momentum spectroscopy [2,3]. These methods are utilised to investigate electronic structure in series of related chemical compounds. Here results from recent investigation relating to propylene oxide [4], benzonitrile and their analogues will be discussed. Through this work, we investigate how structural changes influence orbitals within the molecules, and how nuclear motion also influences the orbital structure.

References
[1] R. B. Woodward and R. Hoffmann, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 87, 395 (1965).
[2] E. Weigold and I. E. McCarthy, Electron momentum spectroscopy (Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, USA, 1999).
[3] M. Takahashi, Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. 82, 751 (2009).
[4] D. G. Matalon, K. L. Nixon and D. B. Jones, International Journal of Molecular Sciences 26, 11729 (2025).