Femtosecond strong-field quantum control with sinusoidally phase-modulated pulses

Abstract

The quantum control of the ionization of potassium atoms using shaped intense femtosecond laser pulses is investigated. We use sinusoidal phase modulation as a prototype for complex shaped pulses to investigate the physical mechanism of the strong-field quantum control by shaped femtosecond light fields. The influence of all parameters characterizing the sinusoidal phase modulation on strong-field-induced dynamics is studied systematically in experiment and theory. Our results are interpreted in terms of the selective population of dressed states (SPODS) which gives a natural physical picture of the dynamics in intense laser fields. We show that modulated femtosecond pulses in combination with photoelectron spectroscopy are a versatile tool to prepare and to probe SPODS. The decomposition of the excitation and ionization process induced by shaped pulses into elementary physically transparent steps is discussed.