Energy Sciences

We investigate the resonance-like enhancement (RLE) in high-order above-threshold ionization (ATI) spectra of the polyatomic molecules C2H4 and C2H6. In the spectrum-intensity maps, strong and weak RLE areas emerge alternatively for both C2H4 and C2H6 but in different sequences. Theoretical calculations using the strong-field approximation reproduce the experimental observation and analysis shows that the different characteristics of the two molecules can be attributed to interference effects of molecular orbitals with different symmetries. For C2H4, the RLE structures are attributed to C-C centers of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) orbital. For C2H6, in contrast, the C-C centers of the HOMO and HOMO-1 orbitals do not contribute to the RLE due to destructive interference but the hydrogen centers of the bonding HOMO-1 orbital give rise to the multiple RLE regions. In addition, clear experimental evidence of the existence of two types of the RLE and their dependence on the parity of ground state is shown. Our result, which strongly supports the channel-closing mechanism of the RLE, for the first time reveals the important role of low-lying orbitals and the differing roles of different atomic centers in the high-order ATI spectrum of molecules.