Sub-10-fs control of dissociation pathways in the hydrogen molecular ion with a few-pulse attosecond pulse train.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27647423.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12835 and PMC identifier 5494193.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The control of the electronic states of a hydrogen molecular ion by photoexcitation is considerably difficult because it requires multiple sub-10 fs light pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) wavelength region with a sufficiently high intensity. Here, we demonstrate the control of the dissociation pathway originating from the 2pσu electronic state against that originating from the 2pπu electronic state in a hydrogen molecular ion by using a pair of attosecond pulse trains in the XUV wavelength region with a train-envelope duration of ∼4 fs. The switching time from the peak to the valley in the oscillation caused by the vibrational wavepacket motion in the 1sσg ground electronic state is only 8 fs. This result can be classified as the fastest control, to the best of our knowledge, of a molecular reaction in the simplest molecule on the basis of the XUV-pump and XUV-probe scheme.