Multielectron dissociative ionization of CO₂ in intense laser fields

The multiphoton ionization of CO₂ has been studied using a laser of 794 nm wavelength and focused intensities in the region of 10¹⁶ W cm^-2. The kinetic energy distributions and ion yields obtained using time-of-flight spectroscopy coupled with covariance mapping can be interpreted most simply in terms of charge-symmetric fragmentation, the strongest channel being O²⁺+C²⁺+O²⁺. These results am compared with two previous experiments on CO₂, one using an intense laser art 248 nm, the other using Si⁸⁺ ion projectiles of 3 MeV u^-1 energy.