We time-resolve coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics during strong-field molecular ionization by measuring the momentum-resolved photoelectron yield as a function of pump-probe delay for a pair of strong-field laser pulses. The sub-10 fs pulses are generated using a specially designed ultrafast optical pulse shaper and the electrons are measured using velocity map imaging. Our measurements, in conjunction with calculations that solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, allow us to time-resolve resonance enhanced strong-field ionization and break it down into three basic steps: (1) Stark shifted resonant excitation of a high-lying neutral state of the molecule, (2) nonadiabatic dynamics (internal conversion) in which multiple electronic states are coupled, and (3) coupling to the continuum (ionization).
We have developed a laser system to generate frequency-chirped light at rapid modulation speeds (∼100 MHz) with a large frequency offset. Light from an external cavity diode laser with its frequency locked to an atomic resonance is passed through a lithium niobate electro-optical phase modulator. The phase modulator is driven by a ∼6 GHz signal whose frequency is itself modulated with a RF MHz signal (<200 MHz). A second injection locked diode laser is used to filter out all of the light except the frequency-chirped ±1 order by more than 30 dB. Using this system, it is possible to generate a 1 GHz frequency chirp in 5 ns.
We present a simple approach to characterize the spatial variation of the gain in microchannel plate (MCP) coupled to phosphor detectors using single electron or photon hits. The technique is easy to implement and general enough to be extended to other kinds of detectors. We demonstrate the efficacy of the approach on both laboratory and Monte Carlo generated datasets. Furthermore, we use the approach to measure the variation in gain over time as the MCP is exposed to an increasing number of electrons.
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