Carrier-envelope phase dependence of the directional fragmentation and hydrogen migration in toluene in few-cycle laser fields

Li, Hui; Kling, Nora G.; Förg, Benjamin; Stierle, Johannes; Kessel, Alexander; Trushin, Sergei A.; Kling, Matthias F. und Kaziannis, Spyros (2016): Carrier-envelope phase dependence of the directional fragmentation and hydrogen migration in toluene in few-cycle laser fields. In: Structural Dynamics, Vol. 3, No. 4, 043206

Abstract

The dissociative ionization of toluene initiated by a few-cycle laser pulse as a function of the carrier envelope phase (CEP) is investigated using single-shot velocity map imaging. Several ionic fragments, CH3+, H-2(+), and H-3(+), originating from multiply charged toluene ions present a CEP-dependent directional emission. The formation of H-2(+) and H-3(+) involves breaking C-H bonds and forming new bonds between the hydrogen atoms within the transient structure of the multiply charged precursor. We observe appreciable intensity-dependent CEP-offsets. The experimental data are interpreted with a mechanism that involves laser-induced coupling of vibrational states, which has been found to play a role in the CEP-control of molecular processes in hydrocarbon molecules, and appears to be of general importance for such complex molecules. (C) 2016 Author(s).

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 2329-7778
• Language: English