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Physical Review Letters

Suppression of Multiphoton Ionization with Circularly Polarized Coherent Light

P. H. Bucksbaum, Mark Bashkansky, Richard R. Freeman, Thomas J. Mcilrath, L. F. DiMauro

Published Jun 16, 1986• 163 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Multiphoton ionization in xenon has been studied with 1064-nm circularly polarized coherent light, producing electrons with energies up to 15 eV. A strong suppression of the cross section is observed for electrons below 4 eV, but not for linearly polarized light at the same intensity. We show that if the electrons are emitted in single-step, nonresonant coherent processes, rather than stepwise excitation, the centrifugal potential barrier in the atomic Hamiltonian produces this suppression.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.56.2590

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Journal of Physics B Atomic and Molecular Physics•Nov 1, 1972•7 citations
Multiphoton ionization in xenon has been studied with 1064-nm circularly polarized coherent light, producing electrons with energies up to 15 eV. A strong suppression of the cross section is observed for electrons below 4 eV, but not for linearly polarized light at the same intensity. We show that if the electrons are emitted in single-step, nonresonant coherent processes, rather than stepwise excitation, the centrifugal potential barrier in the atomic Hamiltonian produces this suppression.
Multiphoton ionization of cesium atoms has been studied with both linearly and circularly polarized light pulses of 1.9-\ensuremath{\mu}m wavelength. Photoelectron energy spectra show that the use of circular polarization leads to a strong reduction of above-threshold ionization (ATI), in comparison to linear polarization, and not to suppression of low-order ATI peaks. This behavior is different from that expected for hydrogen under similar circumstances. Calculations reproduce the behavior of cesium and indicate that it can be attributed to the large size of the ground state of cesium.
The ratio ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{N}$ of the cross section for circularly polarized light to that for linearly polarized is numerically investigated for NNN-photon ionization of atomic hydrogen. For N<4N<4N<4, it appears that the gain factor is greater than unity. For $N\ensuremath{\ge}4$, the ratio ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{N}$ is generally smaller than unity and decreases when the multiphoton order NNN increases.