Abstract

Due to the combination of a relativistic mass effect, the Lorentz force, and the Doppler effect, a host of nonlinear Interaction of light with a single cyclotron electron is possible. The first theoretically predicted¹ and experimentally observed² nonlinear effect with a single electron was the hysteretic (bistable) excitation of electron at the main resonance (i.e., when ω = Ω, where Ω is the cyclotron frequency and ω is the driving frequency), the hysteresis being attributed to a small relativistic change of an electron’s mass.

© 1987 Optical Society of America