Optimizing the ionization and energy absorption of laser-irradiated clusters

Abstract

It is known that rare-gas or metal clusters absorb incident laser energy very efficiently. However, due to the intricate dependencies on all the laser and cluster parameters it is difficult to predict under which circumstances ionization and energy absorption is optimal. With the help of three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of xenon clusters (up to 17256 atoms) we find that for a given laser pulse energy and cluster an optimum wavelength exists which corresponds to the approximate wavelength of the transient, linear Mie-resonance of the ionizing cluster at an early stage of negligible expansion. In a single ultrashort laser pulse, the linear resonance at this optimum wavelength yields much higher absorption efficiency than in the conventional, dual-pulse pump-probe set-up of linear resonance during cluster expansion.

10 page, 8 figures, RevTeX

References in corpus (10)

• First Observation of Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission in a Free-Electron Laser at 109 nm Wavelength
• Ionization of clusters in intense laser pulses through collective electron dynamics
• Small rare gas clusters in soft X-ray pulses
• Asymmetric emission of high energy electrons in the two-dimensional hydrodynamic expansion of large xenon clusters irradiated by intense laser fields
• Nonlinear resonance absorption in laser-cluster interaction
• Anisotropic "charge-flipping" acceleration of highly charged ions from $(N_2{)}_n$ clusters in strong optical fields
• Harmonic Generation from Laser-Irradiated Clusters
• Dynamical ionization ignition of clusters in intense and short laser pulses
• Collisionless energy absorption in the short-pulse intense laser-cluster interaction
• Surface plasma resonance in small rare gas clusters by mixing IR and VUV laser pulses

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Steplike intensity threshold behavior of extreme ionization in laser-driven Xe clusters
• Laser-Cluster-Interaction in a Nanoplasma-Model with Inclusion of Lowered Ionization Energies
• Optimal Control of the Strong-Field Ionization of Silver Clusters in Helium Droplets
• Dynamical resonance shift and unification of resonances in short-pulse laser cluster interaction