Field ionization electron stimulation

Fig. 2.8 (a) Photon-stimulated field ionization above a metal surface can occur by electronic excitation of the atom to an excited state. This process is essentially field ionization of atoms in their excited states. But the ion formed in this process will be quickly reneutralized by an electron from the metal before it can escape from the surface. 

Besides various detection mechanisms (e.g. stimulated emission or ionization), there exist moreover numerous possible detection schemes. For example, we may either directly detect the emitted polarization (oc PP, so-called homodyne detection), thus measuring the decay of the electronic coherence via the photon-echo effect, or we may employ a heterodyne detection scheme (oc EP ), thus monitoring the time evolution of the electronic populations In the ground and excited electronic states via resonance Raman and stimulated emission processes. Furthermore, one may use polarization-sensitive detection techniques (transient birefringence and dichroism spectroscopy ), employ frequency-integrated (see, e.g. Ref. 53) or dispersed (see, e.g. Ref. 54) detection of the emission, and use laser fields with definite phase relation. On top of that, there are modern coherent multi-pulse techniques, which combine several of the above mentioned options. For example, phase-locked heterodyne-detected four-pulse photon-echo experiments make it possible to monitor all three time evolutions inherent to the third-order polarization, namely, the electronic coherence decay induced by the pump field, the djmamics of the system occurring after the preparation by the pump, and the electronic coherence decay induced by the probe field. For a theoretical survey of the various spectroscopic detection schemes, see Ref. 10. 

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