Field-free three-dimensional alignment of polyatomic molecules

Lee, K. F.; Villeneuve, D. M.; Corkum, P. B.; Stolow, A. and Underwood, J. G. (2006). Field-free three-dimensional alignment of polyatomic molecules. Physical Review Letters, 97(17) p. 173001.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.173001

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate field-free, three-dimensional alignment (FF3DA) of polyatomic asymmetric top molecules. We achieve FF3DA in sulfur dioxide gas using two time-delayed, orthogonally polarized, nonresonant, femtosecond laser pulses. Our method avoids the use of rotational revivals and is therefore more robust to temperature. The alignment is probed using time-delayed coincidence Coulomb explosion imaging. FF3DA will be important for all molecular imaging, dynamics, or spectroscopy experiments for which random alignment leads to a loss of information.

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