Retrieval of Interatomic Separations of Molecules from Laser-Induced High-Order Harmonic Spectra

Abstract

We illustrate an iterative method for retrieving the internuclear separations of N₂, O₂ and CO₂ molecules using the high-order harmonics generated from these molecules by intense infrared laser pulses. We show that accurate results can be retrieved with a small set of harmonics and with one or few alignment angles of the molecules. For linear molecules the internuclear separations can also be retrieved from harmonics generated using isotropically distributed molecules. By extracting the transition dipole moment from the high-order harmonic spectra, we further demonstrated that it is preferable to retrieve the interatomic separation iteratively by fitting the extracted dipole moment. Our results show that time-resolved chemical imaging of molecules using infrared laser pulses with femtosecond temporal resolutions is possible.

Department(s)

Physics

Keywords and Phrases

Electric Dipole Moments; Harmonic Analysis; Imaging Systems; Laser Pulses; Phase Separation; Phase Transitions, Harmonic Spectra; High-Order Harmonic Spectra; Interatomic Separations, Molecular Mechanics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0953-4075

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd., All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Apr 2008

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