Abstract

We have employed a novel method, Intensity Selective Scanning [1, 2], to measure time-of-flight mass spectra of ions produced by strong field laser ionization. The hallmark of this technique is that it eliminates a serious problem inherent in traditional experiments: the complex spatial distribution of intensities present in the ionizing pulse. As a consequence, it becomes possible to extract ionization yields as a function of intensity directly from the experimental data, without the previous complication of untangling them from a spatially averaged signal. We present results for xenon ionized by laser pulses at intensities ranging from 10¹³ to 4x10¹⁴ W/cm².

© 1997 Optical Society of America