Abstract

Since the development of the atomic streak camera, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the study of the time dependence of electron emission of highly excited alkali atoms in a strong electric field [1]. For states just above the classical potential barrier, ionization can occur very slowly (100s of psec). Recently, we have shown theoretically that an alkali atom in an electric field can be excited in such a way to produce a long train of electron pulses (> 10), with nearly uniform width and time separation [2]. These temporal modulations in the ionized electron flux arise from angular momentum oscillations within the electron wavepacket.

© 1998 IEEE