Isotope Effect in Tunneling Ionization of Neutral Hydrogen Molecules
Author(s)
Wang, X
Xu, H
Atia-Tul-Noor, A
Hu, BT
Kielpinski, D
Sang, RT
Litvinyuk, IV
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
It has been recently predicted theoretically that due to nuclear motion light and heavy hydrogen molecules exposed to strong electric field should exhibit substantially different tunneling ionization rates [O. I. Tolstikhin, H. J. Worner, and T. Morishita, Phys. Rev. A 87, 041401(R) (2013)]. We studied that isotope effect experimentally by measuring relative ionization yields for each species in a mixed H2/D2 gas jet interacting with intense femtosecond laser pulses. In a reaction microscope apparatus, we detected ionic fragments from all contributing channels (single ionization, dissociation, and sequential double ionization) ...
View more >It has been recently predicted theoretically that due to nuclear motion light and heavy hydrogen molecules exposed to strong electric field should exhibit substantially different tunneling ionization rates [O. I. Tolstikhin, H. J. Worner, and T. Morishita, Phys. Rev. A 87, 041401(R) (2013)]. We studied that isotope effect experimentally by measuring relative ionization yields for each species in a mixed H2/D2 gas jet interacting with intense femtosecond laser pulses. In a reaction microscope apparatus, we detected ionic fragments from all contributing channels (single ionization, dissociation, and sequential double ionization) and determined the ratio of total single ionization yields for H2 and D2. The measured ratio agrees quantitatively with the prediction of the generalized weak-field asymptotic theory in an apparent failure of the frozen-nuclei approximation.
View less >
View more >It has been recently predicted theoretically that due to nuclear motion light and heavy hydrogen molecules exposed to strong electric field should exhibit substantially different tunneling ionization rates [O. I. Tolstikhin, H. J. Worner, and T. Morishita, Phys. Rev. A 87, 041401(R) (2013)]. We studied that isotope effect experimentally by measuring relative ionization yields for each species in a mixed H2/D2 gas jet interacting with intense femtosecond laser pulses. In a reaction microscope apparatus, we detected ionic fragments from all contributing channels (single ionization, dissociation, and sequential double ionization) and determined the ratio of total single ionization yields for H2 and D2. The measured ratio agrees quantitatively with the prediction of the generalized weak-field asymptotic theory in an apparent failure of the frozen-nuclei approximation.
View less >
Journal Title
Physical Review A
Volume
117
Issue
8-9
Subject
Physical Sciences not elsewhere classified
Mathematical Sciences
Physical Sciences
Engineering