Controlling the sense of molecular rotation

Abstract

We introduce a new scheme for controlling the sense of molecular rotation. By\nvarying the polarization and the delay between two ultrashort laser pulses, we\ninduce unidirectional molecular rotation, thereby forcing the molecules to\nrotate clockwise/counterclockwise under field-free conditions. We show that\nunidirectionally rotating molecules are confined to the plane defined by the\ntwo polarization vectors of the pulses, which leads to a permanent anisotropy\nin the molecular angular distribution. The latter may be useful for controlling\ncollisional cross-sections and optical and kinetic processes in molecular\ngases. We discuss the application of this control scheme to individual\ncomponents within a molecular mixture in a selective manner.\n