Strong-field ionization with two-color circularly polarized laser fields
- Univ. of Colorado and NIST, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (Israel)
- Univ. of Tsukuba (Japan)
- National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan)
- Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa (Israel); Ort Braude College, Karmiel (Israel)
Strong-field ionization provides fundamental insight into light-matter interactions, encoding the structure of atoms and molecules on the subångström and subfemtosecond scales. Here, we explore an important regime: strong-field ionization by two-color circularly polarized laser fields. In contrast to past work using linearly polarized drivers, we probe electron trajectories that are driven in a two-dimensional plane, thus separating the tunneling angle from the rescattering angle. This allows us to make several findings. First, we observe a single-lobed electron distribution for co-rotating fields, and a three-lobed distribution for counter-rotating fields, providing experimental validation of the theoretical model explaining the generation of circularly polarized high harmonic light. Second, we discover that there is significant electron-ion rescattering using counter-rotating fields, but not with co-rotating fields. Finally, we show that the rescattered electrons are well separated from the directly ionized electrons, in striking contrast to similar low-energy structures seen with linearly polarized fields. These findings help overcome the long-standing problem of how to decouple the tunneling and rescattering steps in strong-field ionization, which will enable new dynamic probes of atomic and molecular structure.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Chemical Sciences, Geosciences & Biosciences Division; US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); National Science Foundation (NSF); German Research Foundation (DFG); Swedish Research Council (SRC); e USA-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-99ER14982; DGE-1144083; GR-4234/1-1; C24540421
- OSTI ID:
- 1690344
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1181298
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, Vol. 91, Issue 3; ISSN 1050-2947
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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