Photoelectron circular dichroism of chiral molecules studied with a continuum-state-corrected strong-field approximation

Abstract

Motivated by recent experiments on circular dichroism in the photoelectron momentum distributions from strong-field ionization of chiral molecules [C. Lux, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 51, 5001 (2012)1433-785110.1002/anie.201109035; C. S. Lehmann, J. Chem. Phys. 139, 234307 (2013)JCPSA60021-960610.1063/1.4844295], we investigate the origin of this effect theoretically. We show that it is not possible to describe photoelectron circular dichroism with the commonly used strong-field approximation due to its plane-wave nature. We therefore apply the Born approximation to the scattering state and use this as a continuum-state correction in the strong-field approximation. We obtain electron distributions for the molecules camphor and fenchone. In order to gain physical insight into the process, we study the contributions of individual molecular orientations. © 2014 American Physical Society.