Intense-laser-field ionization of molecular hydrogen in the tunneling regime and its effect on the vibrational excitation of H2+.
H2 molecules were ionized by Ti:sapphire (45 fs, 800 nm) and Nd-doped yttrium aluminum garnet lasers (6 ns, 1064 nm). The relative populations of the vibrational levels of the H+2 ions were determined and found to be concentrated in the lowest vibrational levels. Tunneling ionization calculations with exact field-modified potential curves reproduce the experimental results. The reason for the departure from conventional Franck-Condon-like distributions is the rapid variation of the ionization rate with internuclear distance.
Urbain
X
X
Laboratoire de Physique Atomique et Moléculaire, Université catholique de Louvain, Chemin du Cyclotron 2, B-1348 Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium.
Fabre
B
B
Staicu-Casagrande
E M
EM
de Ruette
N
N
Andrianarijaona
V M
VM
Jureta
J
J
Posthumus
J H
JH
Saenz
A
A
Baldit
E
E
Cornaggia
C
C