Multi-ionization of the Cl molecule in the near-infrared femtosecond laser field.

The multi-electron ionization and subsequent dissociation of the Cl molecule in a near-infrared femtosecond laser field was investigated the dc-sliced ion imaging technique. The single charged molecular ions, Cl , dissociate from two excited states, Π and Σ , with the electrons ionized from the HOMO-1 and HOMO-2 orbital, respectively. For the multi-charged molecular ions, Cl ( = 2-8), our results showed that the stretch of the inter-nuclear distance benefitted the ionization of the electrons to produce highly-charged molecular ions.