Boll, R.Anielski, D.Bostedt, C.Bozek, J. D.Christensen, L.Coffee, R.De, S.Decleva, P.Epp, S. W.Erk, B.Foucar, L.Krasniqi, F.Küpper, J.Rouzée, A.Rudek, B.Rudenko, A.Schorb, S.Stapelfeldt, H.Stener, M.Stern, S.Techert, S.Trippel, S.Vrakking, M. J. J.Ullrich, J.Rolles, D.2023-12-072023-12-072013-12-06https://hdl.handle.net/2097/43908We demonstrate an experimental method to record snapshot diffraction images of polyatomic gas-phase molecules, which can, in a next step, be used to probe time-dependent changes in the molecular geometry during photochemical reactions with femtosecond temporal and angstrom spatial resolution. Adiabatically laser-aligned 1-ethynyl-4-fluorobenzene (C8H5F) molecules were imaged by diffraction of photoelectrons with kinetic energies between 31 and 62 eV, created from core ionization of the fluorine (1s) level by ≈80 fs x-ray free-electron-laser pulses. Comparison of the experimental photoelectron angular distributions with density functional theory calculations allows relating the diffraction images to the molecular structure.© American Physical Society (APS). This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/https://web.archive.org/web/20181120135245/https://journals.aps.org/copyrightFAQ.htmlText