Clusters in Intense XUV pulses: effects of cluster size on expansion dynamics and ionization

TL;DR

This study investigates how cluster size influences ionization and expansion dynamics in intense XUV pulses, revealing that larger clusters exhibit more collisions, higher charge states, and reduced photon absorption, affecting their expansion and electron energy distributions.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of collisionally reduced photoabsorption and demonstrates its impact on cluster ionization and expansion dynamics in intense XUV pulses.

Findings

Larger clusters produce higher charge states more rapidly.

Collisionally reduced photoabsorption decreases effective cross-section by over 30%.

Electron distributions become isotropic faster in larger clusters.

Abstract

We examine the effect of cluster size on the interaction of Ar$_{55}$-Ar$_{2057}$ with intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses, using a model we developed earlier that includes ionization via collisional excitation as an intermediate step. We find that the dynamics of these irradiated clusters is dominated by collisions. Larger clusters are more highly collisional, produce higher charge states, and do so more rapidly than smaller clusters. Higher charge states produced via collisions are found to reduce the overall photon absorption, since charge states of Ar$^{2+}$ and higher are no longer photo-accessible. We call this mechanism \textit{collisionally reduced photoabsorption}, and it decreases the effective cluster photoabsorption cross-section by more than 30% for Ar$_{55}$ and 45% Ar$_{2057}$. compared to gas targets with the same number of atoms. An investigation of the shell structure soon after the laser interaction shows an almost uniformly charged core with a modestly charged outer shell which evolves to a highly charged outer shell through collisions. This leads to the explosion of the outer positive shell and a slow expansion of the core, as was observed in mixed clusters at shorter wavelength [1]. The time evolution of the electron kinetic energy distribution begins as a (mostly) Maxwellian distribution. Larger clusters initially have higher temperature, but are overtaken by smaller temperature after the laser pulse. The electron velocity distribution of large clusters quickly become isotropic while smaller clusters retain the inherent anisotropy created by photoionization.Lastly, the total electron kinetic energy distribution is integrated over the spacial profile of the laser and the log-normal distribution of cluster size for comparison with a recent experiment [2], and good agreement is found.