Related papers: Long-lasting field-free alignment of large molecul…
The field-free alignment and orientation of the linear molecule by the two-color trapezoidal laser pulses were theoretically investigated. The trapezoidal shape of a laser pulse allows to enhance the maximum alignment degree for the same…
A strong inhomogeneous static electric field is used to spatially disperse a supersonic beam of polar molecules, according to their quantum state. We show that the molecules residing in the lowest-lying rotational states can be selected and…
Alignment of OCS, CS$_2$ and I$_2$ molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets is measured as a function of time following rotational excitation by a non-resonant, comparatively weak ps laser pulse. The distinct peaks in the power spectra,…
We investigate to which extend a THz laser pulse can be used to produce field-free molecular orientation at high temperature. We consider laser pulses that can be implemented with the state of the art technology and we show that the…
Dimers of tetracene molecules are formed inside helium nanodroplets and identified through covariance analysis of the emission directions of kinetic tetracene cations stemming from femtosecond laser-induced Coulomb explosion. Next, the…
We theoretically consider the phenomenon of field-free long-lasting orientation of symmetric-top molecules ionized by two-color laser pulses. The anisotropic ionization produces a significant long-lasting orientation of the surviving…
Alkali dimers, $\mathrm{Ak}_2$, located on the surface of a helium nanodroplet, are set into rotation through the polarizability interaction with a nonresonant 1-ps-long laser pulse. The time-dependent degree of alignment is recorded using…
We consider solid surface scattering of molecules that were subject to strong non-resonant ultrashort laser pulses just before hitting the surface. The pulses modify the rotational states of the molecules, causing their field free…
An optical centrifuge is a laser pulse which enables controlled rotational excitation of molecules. Centrifuged molecules rotating with well-defined angular frequencies are ideal candidates to probe many-body quantum systems at the…
We present quantum mechanical explanations for unresolved phenomena observed in field-free molecular alignment by a femtosecond laser pulse. Quantum phase analysis of molecular rotational states reveals the physical origin of the following…
This paper gives an account of our progress towards performing femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron diffraction on gas-phase molecules in a pump-probe setup combining optical lasers and an X-ray Free-Electron Laser. We present results of…
Electric deflection measurements on liquid helium nanodroplets doped with individual polar molecules demonstrate that the cold superfluid matrix enables full orientation of the molecular dipole along the external field. This translates into…
A strong inhomogeneous static electric field is used to spatially disperse a rotationally cold supersonic beam of 2,6-difluoroiodobenzene molecules according to their rotational quantum state. The molecules in the lowest lying rotational…
We show that field-free molecular orientation induced by a half-cycle pulse may be considerably enhanced by an additional laser pulse inducing molecular anti-alignment. Two qualitatively different enhancement mechanisms are identified…
A significant fraction of superfluid helium nanodroplets produced in a free-jet expansion have been observed to gain high angular momentum resulting in large centrifugal deformation. We measured single-shot diffraction patterns of…
Helium nanodroplets doped with polar molecules are studied by electrostatic deflection. This broadly applicable method allows even polyatomic molecules to attain sub-Kelvin temperatures and nearly full orientation in the field. The…
We use laser-induced rotation of single molecules embedded in superfluid helium nanodroplets to reveal angular momentum dynamics and transfer in a controlled setting, under far-from-equilibrium conditions. As an unexpected result, we…
Optimal control techniques combined with femtosecond laser pulse shaping are applied to steer and enhance the strong-field induced emission of highly charged atomic ions from silver clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets. With light…
The generation of high harmonics in laser-irradiated light homonuclear diatomics (H2+, N2 and O2) compared to that in atomic counterparts (of nearly identical binding energy) is studied within the velocity gauge version of conventional…
We demonstrate a hard x-ray probe of laser-aligned small molecules. To align small molecules with optical lasers, high intensities at nonresonant wavelengths are necessary. We use 95 ps pulses focused to 40 mum from an 800 nm Ti:sapphire…