Ultrafast disruptive probing: simultaneously keeping track of tens of reaction pathways

TL;DR

This paper introduces ultrafast disruptive probing, a method that allows simultaneous tracking of multiple reaction pathways by disrupting transient species with a probe pulse, demonstrated through experiments on molecules like methanol and norbornene.

Contribution

It provides a formal description, numerical model, and experimental validation of ultrafast disruptive probing, enhancing the ability to study complex laser-matter interactions.

Findings

Successfully tracked multiple reaction pathways simultaneously.

Demonstrated the method on molecules like methanol and norbornene.

Showed compatibility with ion imaging and ultrafast diffraction techniques.

Abstract

Ultrafast science depends on different implementations of the well-known pump-probe method. Here we provide a formal description of ultrafast disruptive probing, a method in which the probe pulse disrupts a transient species that may be a metastable ion or a transient state of matter. Disruptive probing has the advantage of allowing simultaneous tracking of the yield of tens of different processes. Our presentation includes a numerical model and experimental data on multiple products resulting from the strong-field ionization of two different molecules, partially-deuterated methanol and norbornene. In combination with ion imaging and/or coincidence momentum imaging, or as complementary to atom-specific probing or ultrafast diffraction methods, disruptive probing is a particularly powerful tool for the study of strong-field laser-matter interactions.