Nonadiabatic laser-induced alignment of iodobenzene molecules -: art. no. 063410

Nonadiabatic alignment of an asymmetric top molecule induced by a short, moderately intense laser pulse is studied theoretically and experimentally. Numerically, we solve nonperturbatively the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for a general asymmetric top molecule subject to a moderately intense laser field, and analyze the dependence of the alignment dynamics on the field strength and on the rotational temperature. Experimentally, we use time-resolved photofragment imaging to measure the time-dependent angular distributions of the spatial orientation of the molecules. Our studies, using iodobenzene as a test molecule, focus on the short-time alignment dynamics, during and after the pulse.