Saturation of the all-optical Kerr effect

In the following, we present an independent theoretical approach for the prediction of Kerr saturation from experimentally well secured multiphoton ionization models. Our model allows computation of the nonlinear refractive index including its full dispersion deep into the UV from the single parameter of ionization energy. Results agree with experimental data within about 20% precision for the inert gases. Moreover, the formalism can be extended to compute higher-order indices, which widely concurs with the experimental findings of Loriot et al.