Resonant charging of Xe clusters in Helium nanodroplets under intense laser fields

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to explore how plasmon resonances influence the charging and electron acceleration of Xe clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets under intense laser fields, revealing resonance effects on electron spectra but not on ion charge spectra.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of resonance effects on ionization and electron acceleration in embedded Xe clusters, highlighting differences from free clusters.

Findings

Resonance heating occurs in both the He shell and Xe core.

He shell increases maximum charge states of Xe clusters.

Electron spectra show clear signatures of plasmon-assisted acceleration.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the impact of multiple plasmon resonances on the charging of Xe clusters embedded in He nanodroplets under intense pump-probe laser excitation. Our molecular dynamics simulations on Xe309He10000$ and comparison to results for free Xe309$ give clear evidence for selective resonance heating in the He shell and the Xe cluster, but no corresponding double hump feature in the final Xe charge spectra is found. Though the presence of the He shell substantially increases the maximum charge states, the pump-probe dynamics of the Xe spectra from embedded system is similar to that of the free species. In strong contrast to that, the predicted electron spectra do show well-separated and pronounced features from highly efficient plasmon assisted electron acceleration for both resonances in the embedded clusters. A detailed analysis of the underlying ionization and recombination dynamics is presented and explains the apparent disaccord between the resonance features in the ion and electron spectra.