Asymmetric molecular imaging through decoding odd-even high-order harmonics.

The exquisite procedure for imaging a molecular orbital with high-order harmonics proposed by Itatani et al. [Nature (London) 432, 867 (2004)] encounters difficulty when extended to an asymmetric molecule because the wave function there usually does not have a definite parity. With the observation that the wave function can be decomposed into a sum of odd and even functions and that the ionization process in harmonic generation is usually not sensitive to the asymmetry of the molecular potential, we predict that asymmetric molecular orbital imaging can be implemented through decoding odd-even high-order harmonics. A generalized tomography procedure is proposed, which has been certified by analytic deduction and numerical simulation. The above finding greatly extends the molecular tomography procedure and will further stimulate related experiments.