Controlling the collective radiative decay of molecular ions in strong laser fields

Molecular ions, produced via ultrafast ionization, can be quantum emitters with the aid of resonant electronic couplings, which makes them the ideal candidates to study strong-field quantum optics. In this work, we experimentally and numerically investigate the necessary condition for observing a collective emission arising from macroscopic quantum polarization in a population-inverted N2+ gain system, uncovering how the individual ionic emitters proceed into a coherent collection within hundreds of femtoseconds. Our results show that for a relatively high-gain case, the collective emission behaviors can be readily initiated for all the employed triggering pulse area. However, for a low-gain case, the superradiant amplification is quenched since the building time of macroscopic interionic quantum coherence exceeds the dipole dephasing time, in which situation the seed amplification and free induction decay play an essential role. These findings not only clarify the contentious key issue regarding to the amplification mechanism of N2+ lasing but also show the unique characteristics of ultrashort laser-induced amplification in a molecular ion system where both the microscopic and macroscopic quantum coherence might be present.