Attosecond-recollision-controlled selective fragmentation of polyatomic molecules
Chemical Physics
2012-12-12 v2 Atomic and Molecular Clusters
Abstract
Control over various fragmentation reactions of a series of polyatomic molecules (acetylene, ethylene, 1,3-butadiene) by the optical waveform of intense few-cycle laser pulses is demonstrated experimentally. We show both experimentally and theoretically that the responsible mechanism is inelastic ionization from inner-valence molecular orbitals by recolliding electron wavepackets, whose recollision energy in few-cycle ionizing laser pulses strongly depends on the optical waveform. Our work demonstrates an efficient and selective way of pre-determining fragmentation and isomerization reactions in polyatomic molecules on sub-femtosecond time-scales.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1208.4545,
title = {Attosecond-recollision-controlled selective fragmentation of polyatomic molecules},
author = {Xinhua Xie and Katharina Doblhoff-Dier and Stefan Roither and Markus S. Schöffler and Daniil Kartashov and Huailiang Xu and Tim Rathje and Gerhard G. Paulus and Andrius Baltuška and Stefanie Gräfe and Markus Kitzler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.4545},
year = {2012}
}