Effect of molecular alignment and orientation on elliptically polarized high-order harmonic generation

We present a theoretical investigation of the influence of molecular alignment and orientation on elliptically polarized high-order harmonic generation (HHG) from CO molecules exposed to a linearly polarized pulse. The results show that the ellipticity of HHG observed in a partially aligned or oriented CO molecular ensemble significantly deviates from that of the individual response. Additionally, we find that the ellipticity of HHG in the CO molecular ensemble exhibits strong dependence on the degree of molecular alignment/orientation as well as the time delay between the alignment/orientation and probe pulses. More importantly, under the proper alignment/orientation angle, a large HHG ellipticity can be achieved from the partially aligned/oriented molecular ensemble at a moderate degree of alignment/orientation. These findings relax the experimental requirement of a high degree of molecular alignment/orientation for harmonic generation with large ellipticity.