title: High-harmonic homodyne detection of the ultrafast dissociation of Br2 molecules.
abstract: We report the time-resolved observation of the photodissociation of Br2 using high-harmonic generation (HHG) as a probe. The simultaneous measurement of the high-harmonic and ion yields shows that high harmonics generated by the electronically excited state interfere with harmonics generated by the ground state. The resulting homodyne effect provides a high sensitivity to the excited state dynamics. We present a simple theoretical model that accounts for the main observations. Our experiment paves the way towards the dynamic imaging of molecules using HHG.
authors.affiliation: Joint Laboratory for Attosecond Science, National Research Council of Canada and University of Ottawa, 100 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0R6.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Wörner
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Bertrand
authors.forename: P B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Corkum
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Villeneuve