The understanding of molecular structure and function is at the very heart of the chemical and molecular sciences. Experiments that allow for the creation of structurally pure samples and the investigation of their molecular dynamics and chemical function have developed tremendously over the last few decades, although "there's plenty of room at the bottom" for better control as well as further applications. Here, we describe the use of inhomogeneous electric fields for the manipulation of neutral molecules in the gas-phase, \ie, for the separation of complex molecules according to size, structural isomer, and quantum state. For these complex molecules, all quantum states are strong-field seeking, requiring dynamic fields for their confinement. Current applications of these controlled samples are summarised and interesting future applications discussed.Comment: Accepted by Int. Rev. Phys. Che

. (2013) 'Ultrafast above-threshold dynamics of the radical anion of a prototypical quinone electron-acceptor.', Nature chemistry., 5 (8). pp. 711-717. Further information on publisher's website:https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1705Publisher's copyright statement:Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Quinones are found throughout nature as key electron acceptor intermediates, 1,2 with examples including plastoquinone which is involved in the electron transfer chain of photosystem II, and ubiquinone (coenzyme Q10) which plays a key role in aerobic cellular respiration. 3 The central moiety responsible for the electron accepting ability in quinones is para-benzoquinone (pBQ), shown in Figure 1c. Electron transfer reactions involving pBQ can be highly exergonic and are therefore often classed as being in the Marcus inverted region. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] This is shown schematically by the green path in Figure 1a, where a barrier between the Gibbs free energy of the reactants and products lowers the rates of the electron transfer process. However, even in the earliest experimental verifications of the inverted region for intramolecular electron transfer, several electron acceptors based on pBQ showed marked deviations from the expected behaviour, with transfer rates approaching those of a barrierless reaction. 11 It has been proposed that such deviations may involve electronically excited states of the product radical anion of para-benzoquinone (pBQ• -), 12 which could provide reaction pathways that bypass the barrier, as shown in Figure 1a with purple arrows. Figure 1b shows the location of these resonances.From the point of view of an electron approaching pBQ, these anionic resonances in the detachment continuum can capture an electron. Subsequent formation of the anionic ground state through internal conversion would redistribute the excess internal energy amongst all the vibrational modes. In a condensed-phase environment, this energy will be quenched by the surroundings. However, the initially formed excited states of pBQ• -can be unbound with respect to electron loss. For the above picture to be feasible, internal conversion must be able to compete with autodetachment. Electron attachment spectra suggest that it can, 26-28 but how does this occur given that these resonances are in some cases > 1 eV above the detachment threshold?In order to gain a fundamental understanding of the processes involved following electron capture, it is necessary to observe the relaxation dynamics in real t...