Related papers: Hyperfine-Structure-Induced Depolarization of Impu…
Recording molecular movies on ultrafast timescales has been a longstanding goal for unravelling detailed information about molecular dynamics. We present the direct experimental recording of very-high-resolution and -fidelity molecular…
Several laser techniques have been suggested and demonstrated recently for preparing polarizable molecules in rapidly spinning states with a disc-like angular distribution. We consider motion of these spinning discs in inhomogeneous fields,…
We explore the laser-induced ionization dynamics of N2 and CO2 molecules subjected to a few-cycle, linearly polarized, 800\,nm laser pulse using effective two-dimensional single active electron time-dependent quantum simulations. We show…
We produce oriented rotational wave packets in CO and measure their characteristics via high harmonic generation. The wavepacket is created using an intense, femtosecond laser pulse and its second harmonic. A delayed 800 nm pulse probes the…
A comprehensive theoretical approach to describe the electron-ion radiative recombination in the presence of intense, short laser pulses, which accounts for nondipole corrections is presented. It is based on the relativistic Coulomb-Volkov…
Supersonic beams of polar molecules are deflected using inhomogeneous electric fields. The quantum-state selectivity of the deflection is used to spatially separate molecules according to their quantum state. A detailed analysis of the…
We studied the effect of nuclear-quadrupole interactions on the field-free impulsive alignment of different asymmetric-top molecules. Our analysis is focused on the influence of the hyperfine- and rotational-energy-level structures. These…
Short laser pulses are widely used for controlling molecular rotational degrees of freedom and inducing molecular alignment, orientation, unidirectional rotation and other types of coherent rotational motion. To follow the ultra-fast…
We combine experimental and theoretical approaches to explore excited rotational states of molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets using CS$_2$ and I$_2$ as examples. Laser-induced nonadiabatic molecular alignment is employed to measure…
H-atoms in H$_2$O are rearranged by strong optical fields generated by intense, 10 fs laser pulses to form H$_2^+$, against prevailing wisdom that strong fields inevitably lead to multiple molecular ionization and the subsequent Coulomb…
A novel deflection effect of an intense laser beam with spin angular momentum is revealed theoretically by an analytical modeling using radiation pressure and momentum balance of laser plasma interaction in the relativistic regime, as a…
We consider a diatomic molecule driven by a linearly polarized laser pulse with a polarization axis rotating with a constant acceleration. This setup is referred to as optical centrifuge, and it is known to lead to high-angular momenta for…
We show that circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses produce field-free alignment in linear and planar molecules. We study the rotational wavepacket evolution of O$_2$ and benzene created by circularly polarized light. For benzene, we…
Iodine (I$_2$) molecules embedded in He nanodroplets are aligned by a 160 ps long laser pulse. The highest degree of alignment, occurring at the peak of the pulse and quantified by $\langle \cos^2 \theta_{2D} \rangle$, is measured as a…
We present an analysis of two experimental approaches to controlling the directionality of molecular rotation with ultrashort laser pulses. The two methods are based on the molecular interaction with either a pair of pulses (a "double kick"…
Recently, it was predicted theoretically and verified experimentally that a pair of delayed and cross-polarized short laser pulses can create molecular ensembles with a well defined sense of rotation (clockwise or counterclockwise). Here we…
When circularly polarized light is scattered from a rotating target, a rotational Doppler shift (RDS) emerges from an exchange of angular momentum between the spinning object and the electromagnetic field. Here, we used coherently spinning…
Dimers of carbon disulfide (CS$_2$) molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets are aligned using a moderately intense, 160ps, non-resonant, circularly polarized laser pulse. It is shown that the intermolecular carbon-carbon (C-C) axis aligns…
We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a method, where the two intrinsic time scales of a molecule, the slow nuclear motion and the fast electronic motion, are simultaneously measured in a photo-electron photo-ion coincidence…
We experimentally investigate the impact of pulse shape on the dynamics of laser-generated plasma in rare gases. Fast-rising triangular pulses with a slower decay lead to early ionization of the air and depose energy more efficiently than…