Strong-field ionization of dynamically aligned molecules

In a pump-probe experiment molecules (N2, O2) were first dynamically aligned by creating coherent rotational wavepackets with a 30 fs 800 nm pump pulse, and then singly ionized by a properly delayed more intense probe pulse. The momentum distributions of electrons and ions produced by the tunneling strong-field ionization were measured for different alignments of molecular axes with respect to electric field vector.