Electronic ring current and magnetic field generation induced by current-carrying states of ring molecules in intense fields

Abstract

The generation of electronic currents and magnetic fields by and molecules with current-carrying states under circularly polarized (CP) and linearly polarized (LP) laser pulses is investigated. Results show that the electronic currents and magnetic fields induced by CP pulses are higher than those by LP pulses for both molecules in the resonance excitation scheme. This can be attributed to the switchable dipole moment of the laser pulses, inducing selective state-to-state electronic transitions. Moreover, it was found that magnetic fields are sensitive to different initial states of the molecules in the ionization scheme. In particular, the magnetic fields induced by the current-carrying states are much higher than that induced by the ground state, which is because the current-carrying states have a stable electronic ring current and the induced magnetic field is contributed by the current-carrying state itself and the laser field. These findings provide a scheme for generating ring-shaped currents and magnetic fields in molecular systems for future research in ultrafast magneto-optics.