Electron Spin Polarization In Strong-Field Ionization And The Effect Of Spin In Attoclock Measurements

Spin plays a fundamental role in the electronic structure of matter, from single atoms and molecules through to condensed matter. However, spin dynamics and the spin response of electrons to ultra-short, strong laser pulses has remained largely unexplored until today. In 2011 and 2013, pioneering theoretical work [1, 2] extended the fundamental PPT theory [3] to treat ionization of p+ and p” electrons by circular fields. This work predicted the sensitivity of ionization probabilities in strong field ionization using circular fields to the magnetic quantum number, showing that counter rotating electrons can tunnel ionize easier. It also predicted the possibility to obtain spin polarized electrons from strong, circularly polarized fields with a high degree of efficiency. The preference of ionization was later confirmed experimentally by [4], however, the experiment in [4] did not provide a confirmation of the spin polarization predictions.