Rydberg States of Silver: Excitation Dynamics of Doped Helium Droplets

Silver atoms, initially embedded in nanodroplets of superfluid helium (roughly 10⁴ atoms in size), are found to move to the surface and desorb when excited to the broadened $5p$ level. The absorption of a second photon within less than 10 ns leads to the population of previously unobserved Rydberg states $(20<n<60)$ of free silver atoms. This is the first result showing laser induced movement of a foreign atom from the inside to the surface of a nanodroplet of superfluid helium.