Electron spin polarization in strong-field ionization of xenon atoms
Electron spin polarization in strong-field ionization of xenon atoms
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DOI：
10.1038/nphoton.2016.109
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发表时间：
2016-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
35
通讯作者：
Doerner, Reinhard
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hartung, Alexander;Morales, Felipe;Doerner, Reinhard
作为电子的基本性质，自旋在物质的电子结构中起着决定性的作用，从固体到分子和原子，例如，通过引起磁性。然而，尽管它的重要性，在原子与强超短激光脉冲相互作用过程中释放的电子的自旋动力学仍然没有实验探索（1，2）。在这里，我们报告的实验检测电子自旋极化的氙原子的强场电离和支持我们的结果与理论分析。我们发现高达30%的自旋极化随着电子能量改变其符号。这项工作为强场物理学开辟了自旋的新维度。它为产生亚飞秒自旋极化电子脉冲铺平了道路，其应用范围从探测超快时间尺度下物质的磁性到测试具有亚飞秒时间和亚埃空间分辨率的手性分子系统。
As a fundamental property of the electron, the spin plays a decisive role in the electronic structure of matter, from solids to molecules and atoms, for example, by causing magnetism. Yet, despite its importance, the spin dynamics of the electrons released during the interaction of atoms with strong ultrashort laser pulses has remained experimentally unexplored(1,2). Here, we report the experimental detection of electron spin polarization by the strong-field ionization of xenon atoms and support our results with theoretical analysis. We found up to 30% spin polarization changing its sign with electron energy. This work opens the new dimension of spin to strong-field physics. It paves the way to the production of sub-femtosecond spin-polarized electron pulses with applications ranging from probing the magnetic properties of matter at ultrafast timescales(3) to testing chiral molecular systems with sub-femtosecond temporal and sub-angstrom spatial resolutions.