In the tunneling regime of strong laser field ionization we measure a substantial fraction of neutral atoms surviving the laser pulse in excited states. The measured excited neutral atom yield extends over several orders of magnitude as a function of laser intensity. Our findings are compatible with the strong-field tunneling-plus-rescattering model, confirming the existence of a widely unexplored neutral exit channel (frustrated tunneling ionization). Strong experimental support for this mechanism as origin of excited neutral atoms stems from the dependence of the excited neutral yield on the laser ellipticity, which is as expected for a rescattering process. Theoretical support for the proposed mechanism comes from the agreement of the neutral excited state distribution centered at n = 6-10 obtained from both, a full quantum mechanical and a semiclassical calculation, in agreement with the experimental results.

We observe fragmentation of H2 molecules exposed to strong laser fields into excited neutral atoms. The measured excited neutral fragment spectrum resembles the ionic fragmentation spectrum including peaks due to bond softening and Coulomb explosion. To explain the occurrence of excited neutral fragments and their high kinetic energy, we argue that the recently investigated phenomenon of frustrated tunnel ionization is also at work in the neutralization of H+ ions into excited H atoms. In this process the tunneled electron does not gain enough drift energy from the laser field to escape the Coulomb potential and is recaptured. Calculation of classical trajectories as well as a correlated detection measurement of neutral excited H and H+ ions support the mechanism.

A charged particle exposed to an oscillating electric field experiences a force proportional to the cycle-averaged intensity gradient. This so-called ponderomotive force plays a major part in a variety of physical situations such as Paul traps for charged particles, electron diffraction in strong (standing) laser fields (the Kapitza-Dirac effect) and laser-based particle acceleration. Comparably weak forces on neutral atoms in inhomogeneous light fields may arise from the dynamical polarization of an atom; these are physically similar to the cycle-averaged forces. Here we observe previously unconsidered extremely strong kinematic forces on neutral atoms in short-pulse laser fields. We identify the ponderomotive force on electrons as the driving mechanism, leading to ultrastrong acceleration of neutral atoms with a magnitude as high as approximately 10(14) times the Earth's gravitational acceleration, g. To our knowledge, this is by far the highest observed acceleration on neutral atoms in external fields and may lead to new applications in both fundamental and applied physics.

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We report on a laser system based on thin-disk technology and chirped pulse amplification, providing output pulse energies of 200 mJ at a 5 kHz repetition rate. The amplifier contains a ring-type cavity and two thin Yb:YAG disks, each pumped by diode laser systems providing up to 3.5 kW power at a 969 nm wavelength. The average output power of more than 1 kW is delivered in an excellent output beam characterized by M²=1.1. The output pulses are compressed to 1.1 ps at full power with a pair of dielectric gratings.