Intense field techniques for ultrafast quantum control of D 2 + Main contact email

Introduction The study of molecules in intense femtosecond laser pulses has been a research area attracting much interest in recent years. Fragmentation and ionization processes have been studied extensively, with recent studies achieving temporal resolution of the vibrational [1,2,3,4,5,6] and rotational [7,8] motion in the fastest molecular systems. Steps are now being taken towards ultrafast quantum control of molecules , with possible applications in quantum information studies . An ideal system for such studies is the deuterium molecular ion, D2 +. This system offers the theoretical tractability of the fundamental three-body molecule H2 +, but its slower nuclear motion provides increased experimental accessibility for time resolved studies.