Coulomb explosion dynamics of N2O in intense laser-field: Identification of new two-body and three-body fragmentation pathways

The Coulomb explosion process of N₂O in an intense laser-field (∼5 PW/cm²) has been investigated by the high-resolution time-of-flight (TOF) spectroscopy. Six two-body explosion pathways involving the NO⁺, NO²⁺, N₂ ⁺ molecular ions have been securely identified from the momentum-scaled TOF spectra of the fragment ions. Assuming a linear geometry, three-body explosion pathways were investigated by sequential and concerted explosion models. When the concerted model is adopted, the observed momentum distributions of six atomic ion channels; N⁺, N²⁺, N³⁺, O⁺, O²⁺ and O³⁺, were well fitted using the Gaussian momentum distribution with the optimized bond elongation factor of 2.2(3). From the yields of individual Coulomb explosion pathways determined by the fit, the abundance of the parent ions, N₂O^z+ (z=2–8), prior to the two- body and three-body explosion processes was found to have a smooth distribution with a maximum at z∼3.