Ionization Suppression of Heteronuclear Diatomic and Triatomic Molecules in Strong Infrared Laser Fields

Abstract

Ionization is the fundamental process in interaction of atoms/molecules with femtosecond strong laser fields. Comparing to atoms, molecules exhibit peculiar behaviors in strong-field ionization because of their diverse geometric structures, molecular electronic orbitals as well as extra nuclear degrees of freedom. In this study, we investigate strong field single and double ionization of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in linearly polarized 50-fs, 800-nm laser fields with peak intensity in the range of 2×1013 W/cm2 to 2×1014 W/cm2 using time-of-flight mass spectrometer. By comparing the ionization yields with that of the companion atom krypton (Kr), which has similar ionization potential to the molecules, we investigate the effect of molecular electronic orbitals on the strong-field ionization. The results show that comparing to Kr, no significant suppression is observed in single ionization of both molecules and in non-sequential double ionization (NSDI) of CO, while the NSDI probability of CO2 is strongly suppressed. Based on our results and previous studies on homonuclear diatomic molecules (N2 and O2), the mechanism of different suppression effect is discussed. It is indicated that the different structure of the highest occupied molecular orbitals of CO and CO2 leads to distinct behaviors in two-center interference by the electronic wave-packet and angular distributions of the ionized electrons, resulting in different suppression effect in strong-field ionization.