Markus Guehr
Stanford PULSE Institute
Thursday, February 5, 2009
4:00 p.m.
Cardwell 102
Resolving Electronic Structure Using High Harmonic Generation
Monitoring electron motion during chemical bond formation and change is a grand challenge and will greatly advance our understanding of chemical reactions. Strong field high harmonic generation (HHG) could in principle be used for this task because of its sub-Angstrom and sub-femtosecond sensitivity to electronic orbitals. I will discuss the insights and challenges for utilizing HHG to measure time resolved electronic structure using HHG spectra from atomic argon and molecular nitrogen.
In the case of argon I will show how the strong laser field present during HHG shifts the electronic structural features.
In N2 we have found experimental evidence that, in addition to the highest occupied molecular orbital, a more deeply bound orbital also contributes to HHG.