在超短激光脉冲的激发下,原子分子会发生强场阈上电离、高次谐波辐射等高阶非线性的强场物理过程.通过对这些过程中产生的光、电子信号的分析,可以实现对原子分子结构及其超快动力学过程同时具有埃量级空间分辨和亚飞秒量级时间分辨的探测,为人们在极端条件下研究微观世界的物质结构和基本物理过程提供了强大的工具.自2004年发展起来的基于分子高次谐波的分子轨道层析成像方法,可以实现对分子轨道波函数本身的高时空分辨层析成像.这将帮助人们更加深刻地认识化学反应过程的物理本质.本文介绍了分子轨道层析成像的理论方法,并综述了十余年来分子轨道层析成像理论的新进展.
When atoms and molecules are excited by ultrashort laser pulses,highly nonlinear strong-field processes like abovethreshold ionization and high harmonic generation occur.By analyzing the emitted light and electron signals,the atomic and molecular structures and ultrafast dynamics can be detected with a combination of Angstrom spatial resolution and sub-femtosecond temporal resolution,which provides a powerful tool to study the basic structures and physical processes in the microscopic world.The molecular orbital tomography(MOT) developed since 2004 enables one to image the wavefunction of the molecular orbital itself,which will help people gain deeper insight into the chemical reactions.In this paper,the theory of MOT will be introduced,and the progresses of MOT in the past ten years will be reviewed.