Towards non-sequential double ionization of Ne and Ar using a femtosecond laser oscillator

Abstract

We report on first proof-of-principles results on non-sequential double ionization of argon and neon achieved by using a newly developed long-cavity Ti:sapphire femtosecond oscillator with a pulse duration of 45 fs and a repetition of 6.2 MHz combined with a dedicated reaction microscope. Under optimized experimental conditions, peak intensities larger than 2.310(14) W/cm(2) have been achieved. Ion momentum distributions were recorded for both rare gases and show significantly different features for single as well as for double ionization. For single ionization of neon a spike of zero-momentum electrons is found when decreasing the laser intensity towards the lowest ionization rate we can measure which is attributed to a non-resonant ionization channel. As to double ionization, the longitudinal momentum distribution for Ne(2+) displays a clear double-hump structure whereas this feature is found to be smoothened out with a maximum at zero momentum for Ar(2+).

Application of femtosecond laser mass spectrometry to the analysis of volatile organic compounds

“…This is probably the major limitation for FLMS analysis of VOCs in human breath. However, a laser with a repetition rate of 6.2 MHz and peak intensity of 2.3 ϫ 10 14 W/cm 2 has recently become available in the laboratory [36]. VOCs at ppb level can be detected within 1 min with this type of laser.…”

“…Therefore, high repetition and high power fs lasers are required for practical application of FLMS in analyzing VOCs in human breath. A laser with a repetition of 6.2 MHz and peak intensity of 2.3 ϫ 10 14 W/cm 2 has recently become available [36], allowing detection of VOCs at ppb level within 1 min. We believe that FLMS will be an important tool for human breath analysis when high repetition and high power fs lasers become commercially available.…”

Development of an intracavity EUV Source based on a high-power Ti:sapphire oscillator

“…They operate in the net positive dispersion regime resulting in strongly chirped pulses inside the cavity. However, with an additional extra cavity pulse compressor the pulses at the output can compressed to about 50 fs, [13][14][15][16][17]. For intracavity HHG the oscillator must be operated in the net-negative (near zero) dispersion regime, having pulses inside the cavity with nearly transform limited duration…”

“…In recent experiments the pulse energy has been increased by orders of magnitude, whilst reducing the repetition rate from several tens of MHz to a few MHz [13][14][15]. Using an appropriated focusing it is possible to obtain intensities which are sufficient to ionize noble gases [16,17] and hence produce HHG radiation. The other way towards high peak power is the use of passive enhancement cavities.…”

All solid-state spectral broadening: an average and peak power scalable method for compression of ultrashort pulses

“…Therefore, they are not suited for the next generation of femtosecond technology which targets upscaling of both average and peak power [16]. This would for instance enable XUV frequency comb spectroscopy without the need of complex enhancement cavities [17], high photon flux attosecond spectroscopy [18] and reaction microscopy as well as photoelectron emission microscopy at high data acquisition rates [19,20]. Currently, three architectures compete for reaching new records in combining peak and average power.…”