Speaker
Description
Photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) has emerged as an extremely sensitive probe of the molecular and electronic structure of chiral molecules, but its suitability for application to aqueous solutions had not yet been proven. Here, we provide an update on our recent PECD measurements of aqueous-phase alanine, the simplest chiral amino acid. We demonstrate that the PECD response of alanine in water is different for each of alanine’s carbon atoms, and is sensitive to molecular structure changes (protonation states) related to the solution pH. PECD of dilute aqueous-phase chiral molecules currently requires challenging and time-consuming measurements, but new enabling technologies including velocity map imaging of aqueous phase targets promises to dramatically expedite such experiments in the near future. We anticipate that liquid-phase PECD will become a powerful tool for the study of aqueous-phase chiral molecules of biological relevance in the coming years.
