Attosecond molecular Coulomb explosion

Molecular Coulomb explosion has been utilized as a precise temporal clock for probing ultrafast motion of nucleus and electrons during chemical reactions. With an intense attosecond pulse train in the extreme ultraviolet region, we were able to image attosecond molecular Coulomb explosion via two photon double ionization process. The present autocorrelation measurement, from which the duration of the attosecond pulse train was determined to be 300 as, serves as the first step toward a pump-and-probe measurement of molecular dynamics with attosecond temporal resolution. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.