Asymmetric explosion of clusters in intense laser fields
- Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar 382 428, Gujarat (India)
We examine asymmetric expansion of argon clusters illuminated by 800 nm laser pulses of duration Almost-Equal-To 23fs, using three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. For this short pulse duration, laser energy absorption by cluster electrons is dominated by the nonlinear resonance (NLR) absorption process [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 123401 (2006)]. In this work, we concentrate, particularly, on the ionic outcome in the NLR regime and show that higher charge states of argon ions are produced along the laser polarization than in the transverse directions leading to the anisotropy (asymmetry) in the ion energy distribution. This anisotropy already established during the short pulse duration (or in the early duration of a long pulse) may contribute to the anisotropic ion emission reported in cluster experiments with pulse duration longer than 100 fs. Our PIC results are compared with a charged-sphere model showing that cluster explosion is mainly due to Coulomb repulsion between the cluster ions.
- OSTI ID:
- 22086070
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 19, Issue 8; Other Information: (c) 2012 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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