Setting the photoelectron clock through molecular alignment

TL;DR

This paper reveals how molecular alignment influences the timing of electron emission in strong laser fields, providing a new way to probe molecular potentials and electron dynamics with high temporal resolution.

Contribution

It demonstrates that molecules set the clock for electron emission in strong-field ionisation, advancing understanding of molecular-frame strong-field physics.

Findings

Molecular alignment dramatically impacts electron emission timing.

The study provides a real-time picture of photoelectron dynamics.

It offers a new method to probe molecular potentials during strong-field interactions.

Abstract

The interaction of strong laser fields with matter intrinsically provides powerful tools to image transient dynamics with an extremely high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we study strong-field ionisation of laser-aligned molecules and show a full real-time picture of the photoelectron dynamics in the combined action of the laser field and the molecular interaction. We demonstrate that the molecule has a dramatic impact on the overall strong-field dynamics: it sets the clock for the emission of electrons with a given rescattering kinetic energy. This result represents a benchmark for the seminal statements of molecular-frame strong-field physics and has strong impact on the interpretation of self-diffraction experiments. Furthermore, the resulting encoding of the time-energy relation in molecular-frame photoelectron momentum distributions shows the way of probing the molecular potential in real-time and accessing a deeper understanding of electron transport during strong-field interactions.