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Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Spin-polarized hydrogen atoms from molecular photodissociation
T P Rakitzis1, P C Samartzis, R L Toomes
1Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion-Crete, Greece. ptr@iesl.forth.gr
Abstract:
The production of spin-polarized hydrogen atoms from the photodissociation of hydrogen chloride with circularly polarized 193-nanometer light is inferred from the measurement of the complete angular momentum distributions of ground state Cl(2P3/2)and excited state Cl(2P1/2)cofragments by slice imaging. The experimentally measured and ab initio predicted a q(k) (p)parameters, which describe the single-surface and multiple-surface-interference contributions to the angular momentum distributions, are in excellent agreement. For laser pulses longer than about 0.7 ns, the polarization of the electron and the proton are both 36%.
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