Directional bond breaking by polarization-gated two-color ultrashort laser pulses

We experimentally investigate directional bond breaking in dissociative single ionization of H₂ driven by circularly polarized two-color ultrashort pulses of counter- and co-rotating laser fields. Trefoil or semilunar patterns of directional proton emission in a two-dimensional space spanned by the laser fields are observed, which can be finely controlled by varying the relative phase of the counter- or co-rotating circularly polarized two-color fields, respectively. Our results open new possibilities to manipulate two-dimensional directional bond breaking of molecules by strong laser fields.