Steering of molecular multiple dissociative ionization with strong few-cycle laser fields

Abstract

Coherent control is an implicit goal of quantum physics and quantum chemistry, which have been significantly developed in utilizing light to control over the dynamics of atomic and molecular systems.We show that the process of multiple dissociative ionization of carbon monoxide (CO) molecules is controllable using an intense phase-stabilized few-cycle laser field (4.2 fs, 740 nm, 6 × 1014W=cm2). We demonstrate that the controllable emission direction of C2C from charge asymmetrical dissociation and ionization of CO dications is out of phase in a linearly polarized laser field. The strong coupling between the dissociative channels is explainedwith themechanisms of recollision excitation and recollision ionization. The competition between excitation and ionization in a recollision process leads to the opposite asymmetrical property. The results provide an insight into the controllable attosecond dynamics of multiple dissociative ionization of a complex molecule. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.