Dependence of tunneling ionization and harmonic generation on the structure of molecules by short intense laser pulses

We illustrate how the sub-10fs lasers and attosecond XUV pulses can be used to probe the structure of molecules. Experimental results of the alignment dependence of the ionization rates and the high-order harmonic generation yields are shown to reflect the structure of the highest occupied molecular orbital. We also show that the vibrational wave packet of simple molecules can be mapped accurately, including the broadening and interference, by using attosecond light pulses. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.