Ionization heating in rare-gas clusters under intense XUV laser pulses

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to explore how small rare-gas clusters absorb energy and ionize under intense XUV laser pulses, revealing ionization heating as the dominant energy transfer mechanism.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of ionization and heating dynamics in rare-gas clusters under XUV radiation, highlighting ionization heating over collisional heating.

Findings

Ionization proceeds via direct photoemission up to a flux threshold.

Nanoplasma formation leads to evaporative electron emission.

Ionization heating dominates energy absorption, unlike in IR or VUV ranges.

Abstract

The interaction of intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) laser pulses ($\lambda=32\rm\,nm$, $I=10^{11-14}$\,W/cm$^2$) with small rare-gas clusters (Ar$_{147}$) is studied by quasi-classical molecular dynamics simulations. Our analysis supports a very general picture of the charging and heating dynamics in finite samples under short-wavelength radiation that is of relevance for several applications of free-electron lasers. First, up to a certain photon flux, ionization proceeds as a series of direct photoemission events producing a jellium-like cluster potential and a characteristic plateau in the photoelectron spectrum as observed in [Bostedt {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 100}, 013401 (2008)]. Second, beyond the onset of photoelectron trapping, nanoplasma formation leads to evaporative electron emission with a characteristic thermal tail in the electron spectrum. A detailed analysis of this transition is presented. Third, in contrast to the behavior in the infrared or low vacuum ultraviolet range, the nanoplasma energy capture proceeds via {\it ionization heating}, i.e., inner photoionization of localized electrons, whereas collisional heating of conduction electrons is negligible up to high laser intensities. A direct consequence of the latter is a surprising evolution of the mean energy of emitted electrons as function of laser intensity.