Enhanced ionization in small rare gas clusters

Abstract

A detailed theoretical investigation of rare gas atom clusters under intense short laser pulses reveals that the mechanism of energy absorption is akin to {\it enhanced ionization} first discovered for diatomic molecules. The phenomenon is robust under changes of the atomic element (neon, argon, krypton, xenon), the number of atoms in the cluster (16 to 30 atoms have been studied) and the fluency of the laser pulse. In contrast to molecules it does not dissappear for circular polarization. We develop an analytical model relating the pulse length for maximum ionization to characteristic parameters of the cluster.

References in corpus (1)

• Electron release of rare gas atom clusters under an intense laser pulse

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Laser-driven nonlinear cluster dynamics
• Ionization of clusters in intense laser pulses through collective electron dynamics
• Small rare gas clusters in soft X-ray pulses
• Dynamic tunnelling ionization of $H_2^{+}$ in intense fields
• Dynamical ionization ignition of clusters in intense and short laser pulses
• Surface plasma resonance in small rare gas clusters by mixing IR and VUV laser pulses
• Small rare gas clusters in XUV laser pulses