Plasmon channels in the electronic relaxation of diamond under high-order harmonics femtosecond irradiation
✍ Scribed by J. Gaudin; G. Geoffroy; S. Guizard; V. Olevano; S. Esnouf; S. M. Klimentov; P. A. Pivovarov; S. V. Garnov; P. Martin; A. Belsky; G. Petite
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 145 KB
- Volume
- 2
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1612-2011
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✦ Synopsis
We used high order harmonics of a femtosecond
titanium-doped sapphire system (pulse duration 25 fs) to realise
Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy (UPS) measurements on
diamond. The UPS spectra were measured for harmonics in the range
13 to 27. We also made ab initio calculations of the
electronic lifetime of conduction electrons in the energy range
produced in the UPS experiment. Such calculations show that the
lifetime suddenly diminishes when the conduction electron energy
reaches the plasmon energy, whereas the UPS spectra show evidence
in this range of a strong relaxation mechanism with an increased
production of low energy secondary electrons. We propose that in
this case the electronic relaxation proceeds in two steps:
excitation of a plasmon by the high energy electron, the latter
decaying into individual electron-hole pairs, as in the case of
metals. This process is observed for the first time in an
insulator and, on account of its high efficiency, should be
introduced in the models of laser breakdown under high intensity.