Attosecond Electron Wave Packet Dynamics in Strong Laser Fields

P. Johnsson, R. López-Martens, S. Kazamias, J. Mauritsson, C. Valentin, T. Remetter, K. Varjú, M. B. Gaarde, Y. Mairesse, H. Wabnitz, P. Salières, Ph. Balcou, K. J. Schafer, and A. L’Huillier
Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 013001 – Published 29 June 2005

Abstract

We use a train of sub-200 attosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses with energies just above the ionization threshold in argon to create a train of temporally localized electron wave packets. We study the energy transfer from a strong infrared (IR) laser field to the ionized electrons as a function of the delay between the XUV and IR fields. When the wave packets are born at the zero crossings of the IR field, a significant amount of energy (20eV) is transferred from the field to the electrons. This results in dramatically enhanced above-threshold ionization in conditions where the IR field alone does not induce any significant ionization. Because both the energy and duration of the wave packets can be varied independently of the IR laser, they are valuable tools for studying and controlling strong-field processes.

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  • Received 14 December 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.013001

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

P. Johnsson1, R. López-Martens2, S. Kazamias3, J. Mauritsson4, C. Valentin2, T. Remetter1, K. Varjú1,*, M. B. Gaarde4, Y. Mairesse5, H. Wabnitz5, P. Salières5, Ph. Balcou2, K. J. Schafer4, and A. L’Huillier1

  • 1Department of Physics, Lund Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 118, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
  • 2Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Avancées (ENSTA) - Ecole Polytechnique CNRS UMR 7639, 91761 Palaiseau Cedex, France
  • 3Laboratoire d’Interaction du rayonnement X Avec la Matière, Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France
  • 4Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-4001, USA
  • 5CEA/DSM/DRECAM/SPAM, Bât. 522, Centre d’Etudes de Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

  • *On leave from Department of Optics and Quantum Electronics, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.

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Vol. 95, Iss. 1 — 1 July 2005

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