Intense Laser Field Studies of Positive Ions

摘要

There is considerable current interest in the study of atoms and molecules in very strong electric fields. The advent of short pulse high power lasers has enabled new experimental studies in this area leading to the discovery of new effects. We describe an experiment designed to extend these studies to targets of positive ions produced from conventional low energy accelerators. First results with H_2~+ molecular ions are presented, and noted differences with previous measurements using neutral H_2 molecules are discussed.