Doctoral promotion Linda Thesing
21 February, 2020
Linda Thesing successfully defended her doctoral thesis entitled “Alignment and Orientation of Complex Molecules” on Friday 21. February 2020. The disputation took place at the Center for Free-electron Laser Science in Hamburg.
In her thesis, Linda worked on the theoretical description of the alignment and orientation dynamics of complex molecules in external electric fields. This included a study of the mixed-field orientation dynamics of a rigid molecule without rotational symmetry. which reproduced previous experimental results very well.
Furthermore, Linda studied the rational dynamics and laser alignment of molecular systems with additional angular momenta. For the indole-water clusters she demonstrated that the alignment and orientation behavior is not influenced by the internal rotation of the water molecule and that the rigid-rotor approximation can be applied. The influence of nuclear-spin interactions on the alignment of different molecules containing heavy atoms with large nuclear quadrupoles was analyzed. She demonstrated that and in which way the impact of these interactions is strongly dependent on the external field configuration and molecular species.
Linda performed this research at in the CFEL Controlled Molecule Imaging Groups and at the University of Granada in close collaboration with Rosario González-Férez. She submitted the thesis and defended her work in the Department of Physics at Universität Hamburg.
We at CMI wish Linda Thesing the very best for her future career.