Selective control of HOD photodissociation using CW lasers

Abstract

Selective control of HOD photodissociation (H-O + D ← HOD → H + O-D) has been theoretically investigated using CW lasers with appropriate carrier frequency and |0, 0›, |0, 1› and |0, 2› with zero quantum of excitation in the O-H bond and zero, one and two quanta of excitation in the O-D bond as the initial states. Results indicate that the O-H bond in HOD can be selectively dissociated with a maximum flux of 87% in the H + O-D channel from the ground vibrational state |0, 0〉. For the O-D bond dissociation, it requires two quanta of excitation (|0, 2›) in the O-D mode to obtain 83% flux in the H-O + D channel. Use of a two colour laser set-up in conjunction with the field optimized initial state (FOIST) scheme to obtain an optimal linear combination of |0, 0› and |0, 1› vibrational states as the initial state provides an additional 7% improvement to flux in the H-O + D channel as compared to that from the pure |0, 1› state.