Femtosecond-laser-induced alignment in Coulomb explosion of nitrogen molecules

Coulomb explosion dynamics of N/sub 2/ was studied using 40-fs, 800-nm Ti:sapphire laser pulses at the intensity of 10/sup 14/-10/sup 16/ W/cm/sup 2/. The results suggest that above the critical intensity of /spl sim/10/sup 15/ W/cm/sup 2/ the highly-ionized fragmentation channels tend to be aligned along the laser polarization before explosion, while neutral and singly-ionized molecules are never aligned in the explosion.