Dr. A.-T. Le
Kansas State University, Department of Physics
Imaging Molecular Structure with Ultrafast Intense Laser Pulses
102 Cardwell Hall
November 11, 2013
4:30 p.m.
When an atom or molecule is placed in an intense laser field, a valence electron can be tunneled out into the continuum, and as the laser field changes its direction, this electron has a chance to recollide with the parent ion. This recollision is at heart of various nonlinear processes such as high-order harmonic generation (HHG), high-energy above-threshold ionization (HATI), and non-sequential double ionization (NSDI). Those nonlinear processes contain information about the target and therefore can serve as tools for self-imaging of target structure. However, it remains a great challenge to disentangle the target structure information from the experimental measurements, especially for fast dynamically evolving systems. In this Colloquium I will give a brief overview of our recent progress towards achieving this goal. Main emphasis will be given to HHG. Finally, I will discuss our future directions.
