Control of the yield of surviving Rydberg atoms in strong-field ionization with two-color laser fields

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the controllable yield of neutral excited atoms surviving in the tunneling ionization process using two-color fields with parallel and orthogonal polarizations. Using the classical-trajectory Monte Carlo model, we show that the yield of the surviving Rydberg atoms after tunneling ionization can be modulated by varying the relative phase of the two frequency components. Tracing back to the initial tunneling coordinates at the tunnel exit of the electrons that contribute to the surviving atoms, we find the distribution of these coordinates shifts with the relative phase and the polarization configuration of the two-color fields. The orthogonally polarized two-color field counterintuitively tends to recapture more electrons than the two-color field with parallel polarizations.