All-optical molecular orientation

We report clear evidence of all-optical orientation of carbonyl sulfide molecules with an intense nonresonant two-color laser field in the adiabatic regime. The technique relies on the combined effects of anisotropic hyperpolarizability interaction and anisotropic polarizability interaction and does not rely on the permanent dipole interaction with an electrostatic field. It is demonstrated that the molecular orientation can be controlled simply by changing the relative phase between the two wavelength fields. The present technique brings researchers a new steering tool of gaseous molecules and will be quite useful in various fields such as electronic stereodynamics in molecules and ultrafast molecular imaging.