Can I remove the outermost electron of an atom just by shining an EM wave? Or will this just go in a crazy high excited state that is so weakly bound it will be removed by any kick / external potential difference?
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asked Feb 7, 2017 at 0:52
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If the intensity is high enough, optical radiation will certainly ionize atoms via multi-photon ionization.
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$\begingroup$ Wavelength also matters. It must be short enough to excite the electron from ground to the first excited state. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 1:24
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$\begingroup$ Actually, his point is that multiphoton ionization gets around that... $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 1:28