Anisotropic "charge-flipping" acceleration of highly charged ions from $(N_2{)}_n$ clusters in strong optical fields

Abstract

The disassembly of molecular clusters $(N_2{)}_n$ ($n$=50-3000) in strong optical fields is investigated using two-dimensional time-of-flight spectrometry. Very highly charged ions are formed with a two-component energy distribution. A low-energy, isotropic component correlates with Coulomb explosion. A high-energy, anisotropic component, that results from a ``charge flipping" acceleration mechanism, gives rise to ions with energies in excess of the Coulombic limit.

References in corpus (1)

• The propensity of molecules to spatially align in intense light fields

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