Probing multiphoton light-induced molecular potentials

Abstract

The strong coupling between intense laser fields and valence electrons in molecules causes a distortion of the potential energy hypersurfaces which determine the motion of nuclei in a molecule and influences possible reaction pathways. The coupling strength varies with the angle between the light electric field and valence orbital, and thereby adds another dimension to the effective molecular potential energy surface, allowing for the emergence of light-induced conical intersections. Here, we demonstrate in theory and experiment that the full complexity of such light-induced potential energy surfaces can be uncovered. In H${}_2^{+}$, the simplest of molecules, we observe a strongly modulated angular distribution of protons which has escaped prior observation. These modulations directly result from ultrafast dynamics on the light-induced molecular potentials and can be modified by varying the amplitude, duration and phase of the mid-infrared dressing field. This opens new opportunities for manipulating the dissociation of small molecules using strong laser fields.

References in corpus (6)

• Strong impact of light induced conical intersections on the spectrum of diatomic molecules
• Observation of Quantum Interferences via Light Induced Conical Intersections in Diatomic Molecules
• Coherent control at its most fundamental: CEP-dependent electron localization in photodissoziation of a H2+ molecular ion beam target
• Carrier-envelope phase control over pathway interference in strong-field dissociation of H${}_2^{+}$
• Nuclear wave packet quantum interference in the intense laser dissociation of the ${\mathrm{D}}_2^{+}$ molecule
• Streak Camera for Strong-Field Ionization

Cited by in corpus (6)

• High-order phase-dependent asymmetry in the above-threshold ionization plateau
• Probing Light-Induced Conical Intersections by Monitoring Multidimensional Polaritonic Surfaces
• Floquet theory and computational method for the optical absorption of laser-dressed solids
• Floquet Engineering of a Diatomic Molecule Through a Bichromatic Radiation Field
• First-principle based Floquet engineering of solids in the velocity gauge
• Anti-alignment driven dynamics in the excited states of molecules under strong fields