Coincidence spectroscopy of high-lying Rydberg states produced in strong laser fields

Abstract

We report on the measurement of electron emission after the interaction of strong laser pulses with atoms and molecules. These electrons originate from high-lying Rydberg states with quantum numbers up to $n\lesssim 120$ formed by frustrated field ionization. Simulations show that both tunneling ionization by a weak dc field and photoionization by the black-body radiation contribute to delayed electron emission on the nano- to microsecond scale. We measured ionization rates from these Rydberg states by coincidence spectroscopy. Further, the dependence of the Rydberg-state production on the ellipticity of the driving laser field proves that such high-lying Rydberg states are populated through electron recapture. The present experiment provides detailed quantitative information on Rydberg production by frustrated field ionization.

References in corpus (5)

• Attosecond-recollision-controlled selective fragmentation of polyatomic molecules
• Formation of very low energy states crossing the ionization threshold of argon atoms in strong mid-infrared fields
• Two-Dimensional Attosecond Electron Wave Packet Interferometry
• Ionization of Sodium and Rubidium nS, nP and nD Rydberg atoms by blackbody radiation
• Real-time probing electron dynamics of an atom in a strong infrared laser field

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Localizing High-Lying Rydberg Wave Packets with Two-Color Laser Fields
• Streak Camera for Strong-Field Ionization
• Laser-Induced Dissociative Recombination of Carbon Dioxide
• Resolving Rydberg-Electron Recapture Dynamics via Laser-driven Frustrated Tunneling Ionization
• Ultrafast dynamic evolution of multilevel systems in medium-strength laser fields
• Frustrated Double Ionization of Argon Atoms in Strong Laser Fields
• Ultrafast many-body dynamics of dense Rydberg gases and ultracold plasma