Determination of the Ionization Time Using Attosecond Photoelectron Interferometry

作     者：Jia Tan Yueming Zhou Mingrui He Yinbo Chen Qinghua Ke Jintai Liang Xiaosong Zhu Min Li Peixiang Lu 

作者机构：School of Physics and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan 430074 China Hubei Key Laboratory of Optical Information and Pattern Recognition Wuhan Institute of Technology Wuhan 430205 China 

出 版 物：《Physical Review Letters》 (物理评论快报)

年 卷 期：2018年第121卷第25期

页      面：253203-253203页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 0702[理学-物理学] 

基　　金：National Natural Science Foundation of China, NSFC, (11604108, 11622431, 11627809, 11874163, 61475055) Huazhong University of Science and Technology, HUST 

主　　题：Atomic & molecular processes in external fields 

摘      要：Laser-induced electron tunneling ionization from atoms and molecules plays as the trigger for a broad class of interesting strong-field phenomena in attosecond community. Understanding the time of electron tunneling ionization is vital to achieving the ultimate accuracy in attosecond metrology. We propose a novel attosecond photoelectron interferometer, which is based on the interference of the direct and near-forward rescattering electron wave packets, to determine the time information characterizing the tunneling process. Adding a weak perturbation in orthogonal to the strong fundamental field, the phases of the direct and the near-forward rescattering electron wave packets are modified, leading to the shift of the interferogram in the photoelectron momentum distributions. By analyzing the response of the interferogram to the perturbation, the real part of the ionization time, which denotes the instant when the electron exits the potential barrier, and the associated rescattering time are precisely retrieved. Moreover, the imaginary part of the ionization time, which has been interpreted as a quantity related to electron motion under the potential barrier, is also unambiguously determined.