Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 370, Issue 6514, Pages 339-+Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9318
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- BMBF
- DFG
- German National Merit Foundation
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Photoionization is one of the fundamental light-matter interaction processes in which the absorption of a photon launches the escape of an electron. The time scale of this process poses many open questions. Experiments have found time delays in the attosecond (10(-18) seconds) domain between electron ejection from different orbitals, from different electronic bands, or in different directions. Here, we demonstrate that, across a molecular orbital, the electron is not launched at the same time. Rather, the birth time depends on the travel time of the photon across the molecule, which is 247 zeptoseconds (1 zeptosecond = 10(-21) seconds) for the average bond length of molecular hydrogen. Using an electron interferometric technique, we resolve this birth time delay between electron emission from the two centers of the hydrogen molecule.
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