Regular Article

Three-dimensional tomographic imaging of molecular orbitals by photoelectron momentum microscopy

¹ University of Würzburg, Experimental Physics VII, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
² Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
³ Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-6) and Jara-FIT, Research Center Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
⁴ Sincrotrone Trieste, NanoESCA Beamline, 34012 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy

^a e-mail: achim.schoell@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de

Received: 9 January 2019
Received in final form: 19 February 2019
Published online: 10 April 2019

Abstract

As one of the fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics, electrons in atoms and molecules are assigned to respective orbitals. The geometric distribution of these orbitals is immediately connected to many chemical and physical properties of the system. Consequently, measuring electron orbitals directly has been highly desired. In this study, we demonstrate how a combination of a photoemission electron microscope with a synchrotron UV-light source can be utilised to record a three-dimensional set of tomographic data and present a detailed procedure to reconstruct the orbitals under investigation in real space.