Attosecond VUV Coherent Control of Molecular Dynamics

Abstract: High harmonic light sources make it possible to access attosecond time-scales, thus opening up the prospect of manipulating electronic wave packets for steering molecular dynamics. However, two decades after the birth of attosecond physics, the concept of attosecond chemistry has not yet been realized. This is because excitation and manipulation of molecular orbitals requires precisely controlled attosecond waveforms in the deep ultraviolet, which have not yet been synthesized. Here, we present a novel approach using attosecond vacuum ultraviolet pulse-trains to coherently excite and control the outcome of a simple chemical reaction in a deuterium molecule in a non-Born Oppenheimer regime. By controlling the interfering pathways of electron wave packets in the excited neutral and singly-ionized molecule, we unambiguously show that we can switch the excited electronic state on attosecond timescales, coherently guide the nuclear wave packets to dictate the way a neutral molecule vibrates, and steer and manipulate the ionization and dissociation channels. Furthermore, through advanced theory, we succeed in rigorously modeling multi-scale electron and nuclear quantum control in a molecule for the first time. The observed richness and complexity of the dynamics, even in this very simplest of molecules, is both remarkable and daunting, and presents intriguing new possibilities for bridging the gap between attosecond physics and attochemistry.