Photoelectron emission from metal surfaces by ultrashort laser pulses

Electron emission from metal surfaces produced by short laser pulses is studied within the framework of the distorted-wave formulation. The proposed approach, named surface-Volkov (SV) approximation, makes use of the band-structure based (BSB) model and the Volkov phase to describe the interaction of the emitted electron with the surface and the external electric field, respectively. The BSB model provides a realistic representation of the surface, based on a model potential that includes the main features of the surface band structure. The SV method is applied to evaluate the photoelectron emission from the valence band of Al(111). Angular and energy distributions are investigated for different parameters of the laser pulse, keeping in all cases the carrier frequency larger than the plasmon one.