Ultrafast Dynamics Driven by Intense Light Pulses: From Atoms to Solids, from Lasers to Intense X-rays (Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics Book 86)

This book documents the recent vivid developments in the research field of ultrashort intense light pulses for probing and controlling ultrafast dynamics. The recent fascinating results in studying and controlling ultrafast dynamics in ever more complicated systems such as (bio- )molecules and structures of meso- to macroscopic sizes on ever shorter time-scales are presented. The book is written by some of the most eminent experimental and theoretical experts in the field. It covers the new groundbreaking research directions that were opened by the availability of new light sources such as fully controlled intense laser fields with durations down to a single oscillation cycle, short-wavelength laser-driven attosecond pulses and intense X-ray pulses from the upcoming free electron lasers. These light sources allowed the investigation of dynamics in atoms, molecules, clusters, on surfaces and very recently also in nanostructures and solids in new regimes of parameters which, in turn, led to the identification of completely new dynamics and methods for controlling it. Example topics covered by this book include the study of ultrafast processes in large molecules using attosecond pulses, control of ultrafast electron dynamics in solids with shaped femtosecond laser pulses, light-driven ultrafast plasmonic processes on surfaces and in nanostructures as well as research on atomic and molecular systems under intense X-ray radiation. This book is equally helpful for people who would like to step into this field (e.g. young researchers), for whom it provides a broad introduction, as well as for already experienced researchers who may enjoy the exhaustive discussion that covers the research on essentially all currently studied objects and with all available ultrafast pulse sources. -- Provided by publisher Preface 6 Contents 9 Contributors 16 Part I Control of Electronic Processes with Strong Laser Fields 20 1 Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation and Kinematics 21 1.1 Introduction 21 1.2 Strong Field Excitation of Atoms by Frustrated Tunneling Ionization (FTI) 23 1.2.1 Linearly Polarized Laser Fields 23 1.2.2 Elliptically Polarized Laser Fields 29 1.2.3 Intermediate Conclusion 29 1.2.4 Detection of Excited Atoms 30 1.3 Frustrated Tunneling Ionization in Strong-Field Fragmentation of Molecules 32 1.3.1 Hydrogen Molecule 32 1.3.2 Small Molecules 33 1.3.3 Dimers 34 1.4 Kinematic Effects on Atoms 36 1.4.1 Acceleration of Neutral Atoms in Strong Laser Fields 36 1.4.2 Rydberg Atoms in Strong Laser Fields 39 1.5 Summary and Outlook 41 References 41 2 Few-Cycle-Laser-Pulse Induced and Assisted Processes in Atoms, Molecules, and Nanostructures 44 2.1 Introduction 44 2.2 Definition of Few-Cycle Laser Pulse Parameters 45 2.3 Phase Space Path Integral and Transition Matrix Element 46 2.4 Above-Threshold Ionization by Few-Cycle Pulses 50 2.5 High-order Harmonic Generation by Few-Cycle Pulses 56 2.6 Few-Cycle-Laser-Pulse Assisted Processes 58 2.7 Concluding Remarks 61 References 62 3 Angular Streaking for Strong Field Ionization of Molecules---Attosecond Physics Without Attosecond Pulses 65 3.1 Coincidence Angular Streaking 65 3.2 Phase-Dependent Directional Molecular Bond Breaking in a Symmetric Laser Pulse 67 3.3 Electron Tunnelling Site in Electron Localization-Assisted Enhanced Ionization 70 3.4 Orientation-Dependent Single Ionization of CO Molecule 71 3.5 Sequencing Multiple Ionization of a Multicenter Molecular Cluster 73 3.6 Conclusions 76 References 76 4 Control of Ultrafast Electron Dynamics with Shaped Femtosecond Laser Pulses: From Atoms to Solids 78 4.1 Introduction 79 4.2 Fundamentals of Femtosecond Pulse Shaping 80 4.2.1 Theoretical Description 80 4.2.2 Experimental Implementation 98 4.2.3 Adaptive Optimization 98 4.3 Isolated Model Systems 100 4.3.1 Coherence Transfer from Light to Matter 101 4.3.2 Control by Polarization-Shaped Laser Pulses 103 4.3.3 Strong Field Control 113 4.4 Control of Ionization Processes in Dielectrics 129 4.5 Summary and Conclusion 132 References 134 Part II Attosecond Pulses for Inducing and Probing Electronic Processes 138 5 XUV Attosecond Photoionization and Related Ultrafast Processes in Diatomic and Large Molecules 139 5.1 Introduction 140 5.2 The First Attoseconds of the Light-Matter Interaction: Attosecond Control of Molecular Ionization 141 5.3 Photo-Dissociation: Attosecond Control of Dissociation Pathways 145 5.4 Attosecond Control of the Charge Localization 147 5.5 Ultrafast XUV Physics Extended to Large Molecular Species: Case of PAH and Femto-Astrochemistry 149 5.6 The Ionization Step: Attosecond Delay in Photoemission in the C60 Surface Plasmon Resonance 151 5.7 Conclusion 153 References 154 6 Attosecond Electron Spectroscopy in Molecules 156 6.1 Introduction 157 6.2 Temporal Gating Techniques for the Generation of Isolated Attosecond Pulses 158 6.3 Streaking Spectroscopy and Carrier-Envelope Phase of Attosecond Pulses 160 6.4 Velocity Map Imaging Spectroscopy of Diatomic Molecules 163 6.5 Electron Dynamics in Biomolecules 168 References 171 7 Controlling Atomic Photoabsorption by Intense Lasers in the Attosecond Time Domain 174 7.1 Introduction 174 7.2 Theoretical Method 176 7.2.1 Working Equation 177 7.2.2 Interpretation of the Working Equation 178 7.2.3 Photoionization 179 7.2.4 Photoexcitation (Photoabsorption) 180 7.3 Results 182 7.3.1 IR Assisted Photoionization 182 7.3.2 IR Assisted Photoexcitation 186 7.4 Summary 187 References 187 8 Photoionization Time Delays 190 8.1 Introduction 191 8.2 Phase-Shifts and Time-Delays 192 8.2.1 Formal Definition of a Photoionization Delay 192 8.2.2 Ionization Dynamics in Numerical Experiments 195 8.3 Analysis of Two-Photon XUV +IR Ionization 200 8.3.1 Asymptotic Approximation for ATI Transition Amplitudes 203 8.3.2 Extracting Time-Delay Information from Laser-Assisted Photoionization Signals 205 8.4 Review of Experimental Delay Measurements 209 8.4.1 Atomic-Delay Measurements Using Attosecond Pulse Trains 209 8.5 Conclusions 212 References 213 Part III Surfaces, Nanostructures and Solids in Strong Laser Fields 216 9 Ultrafast Nanoplasmonic Photoemission 217 9.1 Introduction 217 9.1.1 Introduction to Surface Plasmon Enhanced Electron Phenomena 217 9.1.2 Surface Plasmons 218 9.2 Novel Nanoplasmonic Photoemission Phenomena 220 9.2.1 Linear Versus Nonlinear Photoemission and Photocurrents 220 9.2.2 Scale Parameters in Photoemission Processes 221 9.2.3 Mechanisms of Photoemission and Related Phenomena 221 9.2.4 Electron Acceleration Phenomena in Plasmonic Fields 231 9.2.5 Surface Plasmon Induced Electron Acceleration in the Mid-infrared 236 9.3 Conclusions and Outlook 240 References 241 10 Highly Nonlinear and Ultrafast Optical Phenomena in Metallic Nanostructures 244 10.1 Introduction 245 10.2 Photoelectron Dynamics at Sharp Metal Nanotips 245 10.2.1 Nonlinear Photoemission 246 10.2.2 Sub-cycle Electron Dynamics in Highly Localized Electric Fields 248 10.2.3 Photoemission from Gold Nanotips Induced by Near- and Mid-infrared Femtosecond Pulses 250 10.2.4 Nanostructure Streaking with Ultrashort THz Pulses 253 10.3 Extreme-Ultraviolet Light Generation in Plasmonic Nanostructures 258 10.3.1 Strong-Field EUV Light Generation from Gas Atoms 259 10.3.2 Experimental Methods 261 10.3.3 Results and Discussion 262 References 266 11 Attosecond XUV Pulses and Surface Plasmon Polaritons: Two Case Studies 270 11.1 Introduction 270 11.2 Surface Plasmon Polaritons 271 11.2.1 Excitation of SPPs 273 11.2.2 Standard SPP Imaging Techniques 273 11.3 A Plasmon Enhanced Attosecond Extreme Ultraviolet Source 275 11.3.1 Spatial Structure of the Plasmonic Field 277 11.3.2 Geometry of the Tapered Nanoplasmonic Waveguide 277 11.3.3 Wave-Guiding of XUV Pulses by the Tapered Waveguide 279 11.3.4 PEAX Temporal Characterization 283 11.3.5 PEAX Spatial Properties 284 11.3.6 Comparison with Traditional Gas Harmonics 285 11.3.7 Discussion and Experimental Issues 286 11.4 Attosecond Photoscopy of Surface Excitations 287 11.4.1 Experimental Setup 288 11.4.2 Theory of Attosecond Photoscopy 289 11.4.3 Low-Speed Approximation 291 11.4.4 Approximation of the Photoelectron Distribution Function 292 11.4.5 Numerical Simulation of the Photoscopic Spectrogram 294 11.4.6 Analytic Model for the SPP Field on a Grating 295 11.4.7 Origin of Plasmon Dark and Bright Modes 299 11.4.8 Results of the Plasmon Imaging 300 11.5 Conclusions 301 References 302 12 Ultrafast Control of Strong-Field Electron Dynamics in Solids 305 12.1 Introduction 305 12.2 Main Theoretical Concepts 307 12.2.1 Wannier--Stark Resonances 308 12.2.2 Accelerated Bloch States 311 12.2.3 Nonresonant Interband Transitions 313 12.3 Strong-Field-Driven Electron Dynamics in Crystals 315 12.3.1 A Numerical Example 315 12.3.2 Ultrafast Injection and Control of Current in Dielectrics 317 12.4 Summary and Outlook 322 References 323 Part IV Atoms and Molecules Driven and Probed by Intense X-Ray Pulses 326 13 Atomic and Molecular Systems Under Intense X-Ray Radiation 327 13.1 Introduction 327 13.2 Temporal Diagnostics of Individual FEL Pulses 330 13.2.1 Solid Surface Cross-Correlation Technique 331 13.3 Ultrafast Ionization Dynamics of Small Quantum Systems 335 13.3.1 XUV Pump---NIR Probe Experiments of Multi-electron Relaxation Dynamics 336 13.4 The Role of Ionization Dynamics for High Resolution Imaging of Bio- and Bio-like Nanoparticles 339 13.5 Automated and Unsupervised Identification and Classification of Single-Shot Single-Particle CDI Data 342 13.6 Future Perspectives of AMO Science at Novel Light Sources 344 References 345 14 Probing Molecular Photoexcited Dynamics by Soft X-Rays 348 14.1 Introduction 348 14.2 Molecular Processes 350 14.2.1 Experimental Work on Molecular Dynamics Outside the BOA Framework 353 14.3 Probing Molecular Electronic Structure by Soft X-Rays 355 14.3.1 X-Ray Absorption 357 14.3.2 X-Ray Emission 359 14.3.3 Auger Electron Emission and Fragmentation 360 14.3.4 X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy 362 14.4 Sources for Ultrafast X-Ray Spectroscopy 363 14.5 Ultrafast X-Ray Probing of Photoexcited Molecular Dynamics 366 14.6 Outlook 370 References 371 Index 379 Front Matter....Pages i-xx Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Strong-Field Induced Atomic Excitation and Kinematics ....Pages 3-25 Few-Cycle-Laser-Pulse Induced and Assisted Processes in Atoms, Molecules, and Nanostructures....Pages 27-47 Angular Streaking for Strong Field Ionization of Molecules—Attosecond Physics Without Attosecond Pulses....Pages 49-61 Control of Ultrafast Electron Dynamics with Shaped Femtosecond Laser Pulses: From Atoms to Solids....Pages 63-122 Front Matter....Pages 123-123 XUV Attosecond Photoionization and Related Ultrafast Processes in Diatomic and Large Molecules....Pages 125-141 Attosecond Electron Spectroscopy in Molecules....Pages 143-160 Controlling Atomic Photoabsorption by Intense Lasers in the Attosecond Time Domain....Pages 161-176 Photoionization Time Delays....Pages 177-202 Front Matter....Pages 203-203 Ultrafast Nanoplasmonic Photoemission....Pages 205-231 Highly Nonlinear and Ultrafast Optical Phenomena in Metallic Nanostructures....Pages 233-258 Attosecond XUV Pulses and Surface Plasmon Polaritons: Two Case Studies....Pages 259-293 Ultrafast Control of Strong-Field Electron Dynamics in Solids....Pages 295-315 Front Matter....Pages 317-317 Atomic and Molecular Systems Under Intense X-Ray Radiation....Pages 319-339 Probing Molecular Photoexcited Dynamics by Soft X-Rays....Pages 341-371 Back Matter....Pages 373-379