Femtosecond electron diffraction to probe structural dynamics in nanoscale materials

In this talk, I will discuss how the method of femtosecond electron diffraction (FED) probes structural dynamics in nanoscale materials. After providing a general introduction to the technique, I will illustrate its capabilities in two examples: (i) As a first example, I will discuss how FED directly reveals the long-range atomic motions accompanying singlet exciton fission in pentacene single crystals. (ii) As a second example, I will show how FED can be used to probe in detail the non-radiative dissipation pathways in photo-excited materials. Specifically, I will discuss an approach to study the microscopic energy flows in a photo-excited thin film of black phosphorus with time- and momentum-resolution.