Isotope-selective dissociation of diatomic molecules by terahertz optical pulses

Ichihara, Akira ; Matsuoka, Leo*; Segawa, Etsuo*; Yokoyama, Keiichi  

We propose a new method for isotope-selective dissociation of diatomic molecules in the gas phase by using two kinds of terahertz-pulse fields. The first field consists of a train of pulses, which composes a frequency comb, excites the selected isotope into highly-rotationally excited state. The second intense pulse field dissociates the excited molecule by further rotational excitations. We performed wave-packet computations using the lithium chlorides LiCL and LiCl to demonstrate the applicability of our method. Nearly 20% of LiCl in the lowest rovibrational state is dissociated in the designed pulse fields, while the dissociation probability is negligible in LiCl. This method is expected to be applicable to other diatomic molecules, and to molecular ensembles whose rotational states spread in energy.