Efficiency of Dopant-Induced Ignition of Helium Nanoplasmas

Abstract

Helium nanodroplets irradiated by intense near-infrared laser pulses ignite and form highly ionized nanoplasmas even at laser intensities where helium is not directly ionized by the optical field, provided the droplets contain a few dopant atoms. We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of the He nanoplasma ignition dynamics for various dopant species. We find that the efficiency of dopants to ignite a nanoplasma in helium droplets strongly varies and mostly depends on (i) the pick-up process, (ii) the number of free electrons each dopant donates upon ionization, and remarkably, (iii) by the hitherto unexplored effect of the dopant location in or on the droplet.

References in corpus (4)

• Spectroscopy and dynamics in helium nanodroplets
• Photoionizaton of Pure and Doped Helium Nanodroplets
• Laser-driven nanoplasmas in doped helium droplets: Local ignition and anisotropic expansion
• Energy absorption of xenon clusters in helium nanodroplets under strong laser pulses

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Long-lasting XUV activation of helium nanodroplets for avalanche ionization
• Single-shot electron imaging of dopant-induced nanoplasmas
• A compact design for velocity-map imaging energetic electrons and ions
• Dopant-induced ignition of helium nanoplasmas -- a mechanistic study
• Dynamics of photo-excited Cs atoms attached to helium nanodroplets