Tunneling ionization of air in the strong field of femtosecond laser pulses

The effect of the tunneling ionization of air excited by individual intense femtosecond pulses with subcritical peak powers has been investigated by the optoacoustic method. With an increase in the laser radiation intensity in the range of 0.5–20 PW/cm², the saturation of the amplitude of acoustic pressure with the corresponding decrease in the nonlinearity index of this dependence is observed. The analysis of the ionization of air molecules in the Ammosov-Delone-Krainov model of tunneling ionization predicts a weakly nonlinear increase and saturation of the yield of singly charged ions at an air ionization degree close to 50% under these conditions of the effect of femtosecond laser radiation.