Link between Photoelectron Circular Dichroism and Fragmentation Channel in Strong Field Ionization

J Phys Chem A. 2019 Aug 1;123(30):6491-6495. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.9b04210. Epub 2019 Jul 22.

Abstract

The investigation of the photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) in the strong field regime (800 nm, 6.9 × 1013 W/cm2) on methyloxirane (MOX) reveals a flip of the sign of PECD between different fragmentation channels. This finding is of great importance for future experiments and applications in chemistry or pharmacy using PECD in the strong field regime as analysis method. We suggest that the observed sign change of PECD is not caused by ionization from different orbitals but by effectively selecting differently oriented nonisotropic subsamples of molecules via the fragmentation channel.