Imprints of the molecular-orbital geometry on the high-harmonic ellipticity

Abstract

The influence of the orbital symmetry on the ellipticity of the high-order harmonics is investigated. It is found that the ellipticity maps have distinct shapes for the molecular orbital with different symmetry. Our analysis shows that the feature of the harmonic ellipticity map is essentially determined by the nodal structure of the nonsymmetric orbital. The results indicate that the molecular-orbital geometry is imprinted on the ellipticity of the high-order harmonics, which invites the use of ellipticity measurements as a probe of the orbital structure for polar molecules.