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Routledge eBooks

Molecular Coherence Effects in Time-Resolved Resonant Multiphoton Ionization

Yuichi Fujimura

Published Jan 6, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Time - dependent behaviors of molecular coherence in resonant multiphotoni onization spectra of molecules are theoretically investigated . An expression for the transition probability of time-resolved two-photon ionization processes via coherently excited resonant intermediate states is derived in the perturbative density matrix formalism. Model calculations of the probability of ionization are performed to predict appearance of quantum beats in pump-probe two-photon ionization experiments. The quantum beat signals in the time-resolved ionization spectra are compared with those in time-resolved total photon emission spectra.

DOI
10.4324/9781003760481-26

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Time - dependent behaviors of molecular coherence in resonant multiphotoni onization spectra of molecules are theoretically investigated . An expression for the transition probability of time-resolved two-photon ionization processes via coherently excited resonant intermediate states is derived in the perturbative density matrix formalism. Model calculations of the probability of ionization are performed to predict appearance of quantum beats in pump-probe two-photon ionization experiments. The quantum beat signals in the time-resolved ionization spectra are compared with those in time-resolved total photon emission spectra.
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I present a perturbation theory of multiphoton ionization based on the resolvent operator. The theory is applied to a detailed study of two-photon ionization under near-resonance conditions. It is shown that a distinction must be made between linear level shifts and widths, and resonance shifts and widths which appear in the transition probability. The resonance shifts and widths exhibit saturation effects and their values tend to be much smaller than those of the linear level shifts and widths. Using numerical examples corresponding to tunable dye lasers and alkali-metal atoms, we show that the above shifts can have a dramatic effect on the ionization rate even when the laser is not in exact resonance with the intermediate level. The question of "one-step" vs "two-step" two-photon ionization is also discussed. It is shown that exact resonance does not necessarily imply a two-step process. In fact, in most cases it is quite the opposite. A quantitative criterion for this distinction is established. Finally, a distinction is made between instrumental saturation and saturation of the transition probability. The two are shown to be of different nature. Further extensions of the work are also discussed.
A recently proposed collisional time-correlation function method for resonance laser–target interactions in molecular targets is modified and extended to include time-delayed multiphoton processes in the dynamics. The explicitly time-dependent laser and target dynamics in this method is separated into laser electric field and molecular target dipole/susceptibility correlation functions. The first and second order laser field correlation functions, also known as Glauber field correlation functions, are evaluated in a continuum mode description of photon number representation for both resonance and time-delayed multiphoton processes. We show that such a description allows for the incorporation of laser pulse shape and phase coherence in the formalism, while the laser–target interaction dynamics is still described similarly to the resonance single- and multiphoton processes. As an example, the transition rates for a two-photon Gaussian pump–probe dynamics are derived in which we show that the phase coherence between the Gaussian pump and probe pulses can be incorporated and controlled through a single delay-time-dependent parameter.
The effect of temporal coherent control on the two-photon-resonant third-harmonic generation and multiphoton ionization into the continuum states of an atomic system is experimentally and theoretically investigated by means of a pair of partially incoherent, identical laser pulses. The evidence of quantum interference as a function of the delay between the pulses is reported. The transition from the resonant to the nonresonant case is also shown. The obtained results agree with the prediction of a theoretical model showing that the onset of quantum interference appears to be related to the coherence time of the laser radiation, which is much shorter than the pulse duration.