XUV ionization of aligned molecules

New extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) light sources such as high-order-harmonic generation (HHG) and free-electron lasers (FELs), combined with laser-induced alignment techniques, enable novel methods for making molecular movies based on measuring molecular frame photoelectron angular distributions. Experiments are presented where CO₂ molecules were impulsively aligned using a near-infrared laser and ionized using femtosecond XUV pulses obtained by HHG. Measured electron angular distributions reveal contributions from four orbitals and the onset of the influence of the molecular structure.