Space-slice ion imaging: High slice resolution imaging in the polarization plane of arbitrarily polarized ionizing light.

We present a conceptually new, slit-based slice imaging technique for ion-imaging experiments, offering a way for high slice resolution imaging in the polarization plane of an ionizing laser pulse. In the present method, a mechanically adjustable slit is installed in the drift region of the flight of the ions so that only a thin central slice of a three-dimensionally expanding ion cloud (Newton sphere) passes through the slit. The sliced cloud is then projected onto a two-dimensional position-sensitive ion detector installed parallel to the slice plane. Compared to the conventional two-dimensional imaging, the present "space-slice imaging" scheme has two principle novelties: (1) The slit acts as an ideal gate for the slicing, and a slice resolution of 1% or higher can be achieved, in principle, using submillimeter slit width for a typical a few-centimeter ion cloud. (2) The imaging plane can be automatically parallel to the polarization plane of a laser pulse regardless of the state of polarization, resulting in a hitherto unrealized "camera angle." We developed a space-slice ion imaging apparatus to realize and validate the present scheme. To evaluate its performance, we carried out the Coulomb explosion imaging of the N2 molecule. By adjusting slit width, slicing up to approximately 0.33% was achieved without remarkable image distortion. The polarization-dependent imaging shows that the ejection angles of ions can be directly read from the observed images obtained with any polarization states. The present imaging measurements in the laser polarization plane opens new avenues for the study of laser-induced dynamics; these dynamics cannot be fully characterized with the existing two-dimensional setups. As an example, we applied the present approach to the time-resolved imaging of a laser-driven rotational wave packet of N2, using a circularly polarized exploding pulse as an isotropic probe in the imaging plane. We successfully observed clear time-dependent images containing full spatiotemporal information of the wave packet dynamics. Details of the concept, design, and operation of our apparatus are presented in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]