Abstract

High-flux VUV and XUV Free Electron Lasers (FELs) would offer many new opportunities for extending our knowledge of atomic and molecular systems and their spectroscopy and dynamics. Obviously they offer the possibility of intense directed energy and thus laser-induced plasmas potentially of high temperature and density. However, here we explore a quite different extension, namely the possibility of unique high energy (say > 10 eV) atomic and molecular metastable states where the finesse and surgical precision of the laser (e.g. operated in special ("low entropy generation") ways, such as near threshold, with resonant enhancement, with near perfect polarization, counterpropagating to cancel doppler shifts, etc.) can be used. Are there novel "islands of metastability" (resonances) which can be reached as the energy is increased?

© 1988 Optical Society of America