Abstract

Electron and ion emission have long been used as probes of the interaction of laser pulses with solid-state materials. [1] For excitation by femtosecond pulses most of the focus has been on either the low excitation regime where single or multiphoton electron emission dominates and surface states play an important role or in the very intense regime where significant x-ray generation occurs. Notably absent are emission studies in the transition region across the damage threshold where electron temperatures are ~ 1 eV, a temperature region where the relaxation dynamics of electrons are important in nanoscale microelectronic devices, ultrafast desorption of adsorbates, and fs-laser plasma physics. [2]

© 1994 Optical Society of America