Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.116, No.46, 11434-11440, 2012
Control of Nuclear Dynamics with Strong Ultrashort Laser Pulses
We demonstrate how the evolution of a bound vibrational Wave packet can be controlled by a strong field laser pulse. We consider two different control schemes within the same molecule (CH2BrI): reshaping of the wave packet via strong field population transfer ("hole burning"), and redirecting its trajectory by dressing the potential energy surface on which the wave packet evolves ("photon locking"). Our measurements are compared with calculations using wave packet propagation on ab initio potential energy surfaces.