High-order harmonic spectroscopy for molecular imaging of polyatomic molecules

Abstract

High-order harmonic generation is a powerful and sensitive tool for probing atomic and molecular structures, combining in the same measurement an unprecedented attosecond temporal resolution with a high spatial resolution, of the order of the angstrom. Imaging of the outermost molecular orbital by high-order harmonic generation has been limited for a long time to very simple molecules, like nitrogen. Recently we demonstrated a technique that overcame several of the issues that have prevented the extension of molecular orbital tomography to more complex species, showing that molecular imaging can be applied to a triatomic molecule like carbon dioxide. Here we report on the application of such technique to nitrous oxide (N2O) and acetylene (C2H2). This result represents a first step towards the imaging of fragile compounds, a category which includes most of the fundamental biological molecules.

References in corpus (6)

• Bright Coherent Ultrahigh Harmonics in the keV X-Ray Regime from Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Lasers
• Field-free orientation of CO molecules by femtosecond two-color laser fields
• Oriented rotational wave-packet dynamics studies via high harmonic generation
• Mechanisms of two-color laser-induced field-free molecular orientation
• Probing molecular frame photoionization via laser generated high-order harmonics from aligned molecules
• Limits of the Plane Wave Approximation in the Measurement of Molecular Properties

Cited by in corpus (3)

• High-order harmonic generation from highly-excited states in acetylene
• Tuning High-Harmonic Generation by Controlled Deposition of Ultrathin Ionic Layers on Metal Surfaces
• Probing the role of excited states in ionization of acetylene