Reaction dynamics studied via femtosecond X-ray liquidography at X-ray free-electron lasers.

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) provide femtosecond X-ray pulses suitable for pump-probe time-resolved studies with a femtosecond time resolution. Since the advent of the first XFEL in 2009, recent years have witnessed a great number of applications with various pump-probe techniques at XFELs. Among these, time-resolved X-ray liquidography (TRXL) is a powerful method for visualizing structural dynamics in the liquid solution phase. Here, we classify various chemical and biological molecular systems studied via femtosecond TRXL (fs-TRXL) at XFELs, depending on the focus of the studied process, into (i) bond cleavage and formation, (ii) charge distribution and electron transfer, (iii) orientational dynamics, (iv) solvation dynamics, (v) coherent nuclear wavepacket dynamics, and (vi) protein structural dynamics, and provide a brief review on each category. We also lay out a plausible roadmap for future fs-TRXL studies for areas that have not been explored yet. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.