Effect of electron impact ionization in laser–metal-cluster interactions

The effects of electron impact ionization (EII) in laser-metal-cluster interactions are investigated with two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. For large Cu clusters (R = 10 nm) heated by moderate laser pulses (peak intensities I-M = 8.8 x 10(15) W cm(-2)), the effects of EII depend on the atom/ion density of neutral cluster or cluster plasma. In high density neutral cluster (HDNC), EII is the dominant ionization mechanism and EII efficiency reaches 55%. However, in the case of low density cluster plasma (LDCP), EII plays a minor role that only increases the mean ion charges by 5%. Moreover, when EII is considered, the energy of ions with the same charges is reduced by 60% in the HDNC case but not in the LDCP case. This is due to the fact that ions in HDNC mainly gain energy through hydrodynamic expansion while ions in LDCP obtain energy through Coulomb explosion. More importantly, it is found that EII efficiency increases when the density of cluster plasma increases and is most pronounced in the neutral cluster. The density dependence of the EII efficiency provides a control mechanism for cluster ionization products with pump-probe technology.