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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Continuum-electron interferometry for enhancement of photoelectron circular dichroism and measurement of bound, free, and mixed contributions to chiral response

R. Esteban Goetz1,*, Alexander Blech2, Corbin Allison1, Christiane P. Koch2, and Loren Greenman1,†

  • *Present address: Department of Physics, AMO Theory Center, University of Connecticut, 196A Auditorium Road, Unit 3046, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA.
  • †Contact author: lgreenman@phys.ksu.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L032036 – Published 14 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8f7h-6nfc

Abstract

We develop photoelectron interferometry based on laser-assisted extreme ultraviolet ionization for flexible and robust control of photoelectron circular dichroism in randomly oriented chiral molecules. A comb of XUV photons ionizes a sample of chiral molecules in the presence of a time-delayed infrared or visible laser pulse promoting interferences between components of the XUV-ionized photoelectron wave packet. In striking contrast to multicolor phase control schemes relying on pulse shaping techniques, the magnitude of the resulting chiral signal is here controlled by the time delay between the XUV and laser pulses. Furthermore, we show that the relative polarization configurations of the XUV and IR fields allow for disentangling the contributions of bound and continuum states to the chiral response. Our proposal provides a simple, robust, and versatile tool for the control of photoelectron circular dichroism and experimentally feasible protocol for probing the individual contributions of bound and continuum states to the photoelectron circular dichroism in a time-resolved manner.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L032036– Published 14 August, 2025
  • Received 15 November 2023
  • Revised 18 May 2025
  • Accepted 25 July 2025
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