High-order photoelectron holography in the midinfrared-wavelength regime

Journal article, 2018

We study the dynamical photoelectron holography of an excited hydrogen atom with a strong midinfrared laser field using numerical solutions of the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinguer equation. A clear holographic interference pattern of first and high order (hologram) is recorded in the two-dimensional (2D) momentum distribution of the photoelectron. The patterns are well reproduced by additional quantitative calculations based on the Lippmann-Schwinger equation. Here, the high-order interference effect is linked to the multsicattering of low-momentum electrons driven by the midinfrared laser field prior to ejection. The phenomenon manifests by low-momentum structures in 2D momentum distributions and is found to be sensitive to the change of the optical carrier-envelope phase (CEP). By analyzing the temporal evolution of the buildup of the hologram, we show that this sensitivity results from the birth time of the continuum wave packet with an offset in time during the subcycle dynamics, thus encoding information about the ionization mechanism which is mapped into the CEP-resolved 2D momentum distributions and angle-resolved photoelectron spectra. It is indeed an indicator that the ejected electrons exhibit a memory of their birth-time. These findings suggest that the CEP-resolved photoelectron holography serves as a tool for a direct measurement of attosecond dynamics. Furthermore, the effects due to such multiple scattering electron paths can be used to design new atom interferometers to highlight mechanisms that require higher accuracy.