Study of the induced potential produced by ultrashort pulses on metal surfaces

Abstract

The relevance of the induced potential for photoelectron emission from metal surfaces resulting from grazingincidence ultrashort laser pulses is studied. To describe this process we introduce a distorted-wave method, which includes the perturbation on the emitted electron produced by both the laser and the induced fields. The method is applied to an Al(111) surface, and the results are compared with the numerical solution to the timedependent Schrödinger equation. We find that our approach reproduces the main features of emission spectra well, accounting properly for effects originated by the induced potential.