Interference effect in high order harmonic generation by aligned O2

Abstract

High order harmonic generation (HHG) is an important phenomenon when atoms or molecules interact with an intense laser field. It can be used to generate ultrashort laser source, and can also be used to investigate the atomic and molecular dynamics and obtain the electric structure information of molecules. All these require to understand in depth the mechanism of HHG. There are complicated interference effects in HHG spectra of molecules due to multiple re-collision atomic centers in the molecule. In this paper, spectra of aligned O₂ molecule in linearly polarized laser field is investigated by using the Lewenstein' s model. The dependence of the spectrum on the angle θ between the nuclear axis of the molecule and the laser polarization direction is obtained. It is shown that the maximum yield of HHG occurs at <i>θ</i> of 45°, which is in consistence with the experimental result. In addition, it is found that there exists a minimum value in the HHG spectrum for any given value of<i> θ</i>. The harmonic order corresponding to the minimum increases with <i>θ</i> increasing. It is found that the minimum comes from the coherent superposition of contributions from two channels. One channel refers to that the ionized electron from one atomic center, subjected to the electric field of the laser, moves back to its parent atomic center and there it combines with the molecule and emits harmonics; while the other channel is that the ionized electron generated from one atomic center move back to the other atomic center to complete the combination and emission of harmonics. The angle <i>θ-</i>dependent phase difference between contributions from these two channels is calculated and the harmonic order corresponding to the minimum value is obtained. Finally, the reason why the yield of HHG is low for the case of the molecular axis parallel to the laser polarization direction is different from that for the case of the molecular axis perpendicular to the polarization direction. For the parallel case, the contributions to HHG from the two channels are both small so that the amplitude of their coherent superposition is small. While for the perpendicular case, the individual contribution from each channel is not small but their destructive interference leads to small yield in harmonicspectrum.