Oxygen-specific photoelectron circular dichroism in gas-phase fenchone

Understanding the light-driven responses of chiral molecular systems at a fundamental level – electronically – via photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) provides a pathway to unlock the intricate mechanisms governing the functionality of chiral molecules. The specific role of oxygen atoms in chiral compounds remains underexplored, despite their pivotal role in numerous functional systems. We report a joint experimental and theoretical study of the PECD of O 1s electrons from the randomly oriented chiral molecule fenchone (C10H16O) in the gas phase across a kinetic-energy range from 3 eV to 15 eV. We observe a substantial forward-backward asymmetry in the electron emission patterns across several electronvolts, which is well reproduced by relaxed-core Hartree-Fock calculations. Our results provide a site-specific perspective on the chiral sensitivity of an oxygen atom directly connected to the stereocenter of a chiral molecule.

Phtooelectron data in the form of Igor binairy files from the experimental setup. Two .xls tables are available with the theory data points. One is the calculated point for the cross section, the b1 and b2 parameters. The other one contains the interpolated points to create the curve from the figure 1 of the main manuscript.