Hannover 2016 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 11: Atomic clusters I (with MO)
A 11.5: Talk
Monday, February 29, 2016, 18:00–18:15, f107
Control of NIR avalanching in clusters by XUV-driven seed electrons — •Bernd Schütte1,2, Mathias Arbeiter3, Alexandre Mermillod-Blondin1, Marc Vrakking1, Thomas Fennel3, and Arnaud Rouzée1 — 1Max-Born-Institut Berlin, Germany — 2Imperial College London, UK — 3Universität Rostock, Germany
The interaction of intense NIR laser pulses with clusters induces highly nonlinear dynamics on attosecond to nanosecond timescales. Recently, we made progress in understanding the relaxation dynamics of clusters in the picosecond to nanosecond range, where electron-ion recombination [1] and correlated electronic decay [2] play an important role.
Novel experimental approaches are required in order to gain access to the ionization dynamics on an attosecond to femtosecond timescale. Here we report on a method, in which cluster ionization is ignited by generating a few (<10) seed electrons using an XUV pulse. The clusters become strongly ionized (charges up to Ar4+ are observed) by a time-delayed NIR laser pulse at an intensity of 3× 1012 W/cm2. This is far below the tunnel ionization threshold and corresponds to a ponderomotive potential of only 170 meV. The results are explained by avalanching via efficient inverse bremsstrahlung and electron impact ionization, as well as by resonant absorption of laser energy [3]. In the future, we will apply our concept in order to time-resolve the strong-field ionization of solid-density targets with attosecond resolution.
[1] B. Schütte et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 253401 (2014).
[2] B. Schütte et al., Nat. Commun. 6, 8596 (2015).
[3] B. Schütte et al., arXiv:1509.03250 (2015).