Strong laser field ionization and subsequent dissociation of carbon monoxide molecular ion fragments

Strong-field ionization of atoms is well studied for a variety of charge states from neutral to +26 xenon for example. However, strong-field ionization of molecules introduces additional considerations such as field alignment, bond hardening/softening, and dissociative ionization. For this study, we focus on the latter for carbon monoxide in a ~800nm linearly polarized strong laser field by modeling the dissociative ionization and subsequent ionization of the molecular fragments. Additionally, the molecular fragment ion charge causes a coulomb explosion dependent on the ionization rate which is itself based on the temporal profile of the laser pulse. We calculate the kinetic energy spectrum of the released carbon monoxide fragments for comparison with experiment.