Stephen R. Leone

About

Stephen R. Leone is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, holding the John R. Thomas Endowed Chair in Physical Chemistry. His research interests encompass ultrafast laser investigations and soft x-ray probing of valence and core levels, attosecond physics and chemistry, state-resolved collision processes and kinetics investigations, nanoparticle fluorescence intermittency, aerosol chemistry and dynamics, probing with near field optical microscopy, and neutrals imaging. His projects are grouped along themes such as ultrafast laser molecular dynamics, chemical dynamics of molecules, nanoparticles, and clusters, as well as nanostructured materials investigations with scanned probe microscopies. Leone's work involves using femtosecond laser dynamics, ultrafast soft x-ray, and time-resolved x-ray photoelectron dynamics to study molecular motion on vibrational, rotational, and electronic timescales, including the analysis of molecular photodissociation via soft x-ray laser techniques. He has contributed to the development of high order harmonic generation for probing valence shell photoelectron spectra and core level spectroscopy, as well as generating isolated attosecond pulses to investigate electronic timescales in molecules and clusters. His research also extends to ultralow temperature gas phase kinetics relevant to planetary atmospheres, combustion dynamics, and heterogeneous chemistry with applications to fuel droplet combustion and atmospheric…

Research topics

• Physics
• Optics
• Atomic physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Molecular physics
• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Condensed matter physics
• Mathematical optimization
• Physical chemistry

Selected publications

• Simultaneous Observation of Carrier-Specific Redistribution and Coherent Lattice Dynamics in 2H-MoTe₂ with Femtosecond Core-Level Spectroscopy

  ACS Nano · 2020 · 56 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  within a single experiment, our work provides a benchmark for understanding the interplay between electronic and structural dynamics in photoexcited nanomaterials.

  DOI

• Accurate prediction of core-level spectra of radicals at density functional theory cost via square gradient minimization and recoupling of mixed configurations

  The Journal of Chemical Physics · 2020 · 49 citations

  State-specific orbital optimized approaches are more accurate at predicting\ncore-level spectra than traditional linear-response protocols, but their\nutility had been restricted on account of the risk of `variational collapse'\ndown to the ground state. We employ the recently developed square gradient\nminimization (SGM, J. Chem. Theory Comput. 16, 1699-1710, 2020) algorithm to\nreliably avoid variational collapse and study the effectiveness of orbital\noptimized density functional theory (DFT)…

  DOI

• Solid state core-exciton dynamics in NaCl observed by tabletop attosecond four-wave mixing spectroscopy

  Physical review. B./Physical review. B · 2021 · 34 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Nonlinear wave mixing in solids with ultrafast x-rays can provide insight into complex electronic dynamics of materials. Here, tabletop-based attosecond noncollinear four-wave mixing (FWM) spectroscopy using one extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulse from high harmonic generation and two separately timed few-cycle near-infrared (NIR) pulses characterizes the dynamics of the ${\mathrm{Na}}^{+}$ ${L}_{2,3}$ edge core-excitons in NaCl around 33.5 eV. An inhomogeneous distribution of core-excitons underlyi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Extracting doubly excited state lifetimes in helium directly in the time domain with attosecond noncollinear four-wave-mixing spectroscopy

  Physical Review Research · 2024-11-05 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The helium atom, with one nucleus and two electrons, is a prototypical system to study quantum many-body dynamics. Doubly excited states, or quantum states in which both electrons are excited by one photon, showcase electronic-correlation mediated effects. In this paper, the natural lifetimes of the doubly excited <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mrow><a:msup><a:mrow/><a:mn>1</a:mn></a:msup><a:msup><a:mrow><a:mi>P</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mi>o</a:mi></a:msup><a:mspace width="4pt"…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Initial electron thermalization in metals measured by attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy

  Physical review. B./Physical review. B · 2024-11-04 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  Understanding initial electron thermalization has relevance to both fundamental scientific knowledge and application to the construction of novel devices. In this study, attosecond transient absorption is used to directly measure initial electron thermalization times of 38 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 8 fs, 15 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 3 fs, 4.2 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 1 fs, and 2.0 \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{} 0.3 fs for Mg, Pt, Fe, and Co, respectively. Through time-dependent density-f…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• ITR: Molecular Qubit Transformations with Phase-Shaped Femtosecond Pulses

  NSF · $500k · 2002–2007

• Attosecond Electron Dynamics

  NSF · $540k · 2017–2021

• MRI: Development of an Isolated Attosecond Pulse Spectrometer at the Carbon K Edge

  NSF · $987k · 2016–2019

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel M. Neumark

  University of California, Berkeley

  580 shared

• Veronica M. Bierbaum

  302 shared

• Musahid Ahmed

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  134 shared

• Craig A. Taatjes

  Sandia National Laboratories California

  132 shared

• Valeriu Scutelnic

  115 shared

• David L. Osborn

  Sandia National Laboratories California

  115 shared

• Thomas Pfeifer

  106 shared

• Mark J. Abel

  Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society

  99 shared

Labs

• Hildebrand LabPI

Awards & honors

• Department of Commerce Silver Medal Award (1980)
• American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award (1982)
• American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for…
• Coblentz Award for Spectroscopy (1984)
• Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award (1984)

Similar researchers at University of California, Berkeley

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• Jennifer A. Doudnah-230
• Jeffrey R. Longh-189