Selective Strong-Field Enhancement and Suppression of Ionization with Short Laser Pulses

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate robust selective excitation and attenuation of atomic Rydberg level populations in sodium vapor (Na I) using intense laser pulses in the strong field limit ($>10^{12}W/c{m}^2$). The coherent control of the atomic population and related ionization channels is realized for intensities above the over-the-barrier ionization intensity. A qualitative model predicts that this strong field coherent control arises through the manifestation of a Freeman resonance.

7 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Intensity-Resolved Above Threshold Ionization of Xenon with Short Laser Pulses
• Highly ionized xenon and volumetric weighting in restricted focal geometries

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Absolute strong-field ionization probabilities of ultracold rubidium atoms
• Observation of Dynamic Stark Resonances in Strong-Field Excitation
• Ultrafast Electron Cooling in an Expanding Ultracold Plasma
• Ellipticity-dependent sequential over-barrier ionization of cold rubidium
• On the selective multiphoton ionization of sodium by femtosecond laser pulses: A partial-wave analysis
• Few-photon single ionization of cold rubidium in the over-the-barrier regime
• Sub-barrier pathways to Freeman resonances