Using circular dichroism to control energy transfer in multi-photon ionization

Abstract

Chirality causes symmetry breaks in a large variety of natural phenomena ranging from particle physics to biochemistry. We investigate one of the simplest conceivable chiral systems, a laser-excited, oriented, effective one-electron Li target. Prepared in a polarized p state with |m|=1 in an optical trap, the atoms are exposed to co- and counter-rotating circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulses. For a field frequency near the excitation energy of the oriented initial state, a strong circular dichroism is observed and the photoelectron energies are significantly affected by the helicity-dependent Autler-Townes splitting. Besides its fundamental relevance, this system is suited to create spin-polarized electron pulses with a reversible switch on a femtosecond timescale at an energy resolution of a few meV.

References in corpus (9)

• Ultrafast Preparation and Detection of Ring Currents in Single Atoms
• Electron spin polarization in strong-field ionization of Xenon atoms
• Compact 200 kHz HHG source driven by a few-cycle OPCPA
• Quantum control of photoelectron circular dichroism
• Electron and recoil ion momentum imaging with a magneto-optically trapped target
• Ionization and excitation of the excited hydrogen atom in strong circularly polarized laser fields
• Maximum Elliptical Dichroism in Atomic Two-Photon Ionization
• An all-optical atom trap as a target for MOTRIMS-like collision experiments
• Photo-ionization of polarized lithium atoms out of an all-optical atom trap: A complete experiment

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Nonlinear circular dichroism in Mie-resonant nanoparticle dimers
• Circular Dichroism in Atomic Resonance-Enhanced Few-Photon Ionization
• Strongly resonant RABBITT on lithium
• When does nonlinear circular dichroism appear in achiral dielectric nanoparticles?
• Photoelectron momentum distributions in the strong-field ionization of atomic hydrogen by few-cycle elliptically polarized optical pulses
• Ultrafast preparation and strong-field ionization of an atomic Bell-like state
• Two-path interference in the resonance-enhanced few-photon ionization of atoms
• Local most-probable routes and classic-quantum correspondence in strong-field two-dimensional tunneling ionization
• Circular Dichroism in Multiphoton Ionization of Resonantly Excited Helium Ions near Channel Closing
• Magnetic Dichroism in Few-Photon Ionization of Polarized Atoms
• Carrier-envelope phase effects in one- and two-photon directional photoionization of non-isotropic atomic states