We report experimental investigations of the two-body Coulomb explosion of ammonia molecules, i.e., ${\mathrm{NH}}_3{}^{2+}\to {\mathrm{NH}}_2{}^{+}+{\mathrm{H}}^{+}$, in a phase-controlled linearly polarized laser field. By inspecting the measured kinetic energy release of the fragments, we identify three fragmentation pathways that involve different dication states. The emission direction of ${\mathrm{NH}}_2{}^{+}$ fragments in those three pathways exhibits different two-color phase dependence, unraveling distinct asymmetric dissociation of ${\mathrm{NH}}_3{}^{2+}$. We show that the asymmetric dissociation of ${\mathrm{NH}}_3{}^{2+}$ can be explained by the asymmetric profile of relevant molecular orbitals along the dissociated N-H bond direction.

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• Atomic & molecular processes in external fields
• Molecular dissociation
• Molecules