Selective breaking of bonds in water with intense, 2-cycle, infrared laser pulses

摘要: One of the holy grails contemporary science has been to establish possibility preferentially breaking one several bonds in a molecule. For instance, two O–H water are equivalent: given sufficient energy, either them is equally likely break. We report bond-selective molecular fragmentation upon application intense, 2-cycle pulses 800 nm laser light: we demonstrate up three-fold enhancement for preferential bond isotopically substituted (HOD). Our experimental observations rationalized by means ab initio computations potential energy surfaces HOD, HOD+, and HOD2+ explorations dissociation limits resulting from or O–D rupture. The present formidable theoretical challenge that need be taken order gain insights into dynamics, strong field physics, chemical non-adiabatic processes, mass spectrometry, time-dependent quantum chemistry.