[13a-A25-1~11] 7.4 Buried interface sciences with quantum beam

[13a-A25-11] Time-resolved electron diffraction unveiling buried structures in liquid crystal

〇Masaki Hada^1,2, Shohei Saito^2,3, Sei'ichi Tanaka⁴, Ryuma Sato⁵, Kyohei Matsuo⁶, Mitsuo Hara⁷, Yasuhiko Hayashi¹, Kazuhiro Mori⁶, Masahiko Yoshimura⁶, Yasuteru Shigeta⁵, Shigehiro Yamaguchi⁶, Ken Onda^2,4, R.J. Dwayne Miller^8,9 (1.Okayama Univ., 2.JST-PRESTO, 3.Kyoto Univ., 4.Tokyo Tech., 5.Tsukuba Univ., 6.Nagoya Univ. (Sci.), 7.Nagoya Univ. (Eng.), 8.Max Planck Inst., 9.Toronto Univ.)

Keywords:Liquid crystal, Ultrafast phenomena, Structural dynamics

We demonstrated ultrafast time-resolved electron diffraction to reveal the structural dynamics of photoactive molecules in liquid crystal phase. The molecules in liquid crystal phase have high mobility and orientation ordering leading to their multifarious functions. The difficulty in crystallographic characterization of molecules in liquid crystal phase arises from a large degree of freedom in molecular motions that yields bleary diffraction patterns. Our approach resembles "treasure hunting", which picks up the peak modulation by the photoinduced molecular motions in the bleary diffraction.