Nonadiabatic molecular orientation by polarization-gated ultrashort laser pulses

Abstract

We show that the nonadiabatic orientation of diatomic polar molecules can be controlled by polarization-gated ultrashort laser pulses. By finely adjusting the time interval between two circularly polarized pulses of different wavelengths but the same helicity, the orientation direction of the molecules can be twirled. A cloverlike potential is created by using two circularly polarized laser pulses of different wavelengths and opposite helicity, leading to multidirectional molecular orientation along the potential wells, which can be well revealed by a high-order statistics metric of $\ensuremath{\langle}\ensuremath{\langle}\mathrm{cos}{}^{3}{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{d}\ensuremath{\rangle}\ensuremath{\rangle}$.