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. 2013:4:2691.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms3691.

Attosecond nonlinear optics using gigawatt-scale isolated attosecond pulses

Eiji J Takahashi  1 , Pengfei Lan, Oliver D Mücke, Yasuo Nabekawa, Katsumi Midorikawa
Affiliations

Attosecond nonlinear optics using gigawatt-scale isolated attosecond pulses

Eiji J Takahashi et al. Nat Commun. 2013.

Abstract

High-energy isolated attosecond pulses required for the most intriguing nonlinear attosecond experiments as well as for attosecond-pump/attosecond-probe spectroscopy are still lacking at present. Here we propose and demonstrate a robust generation method of intense isolated attosecond pulses, which enable us to perform a nonlinear attosecond optics experiment. By combining a two-colour field synthesis and an energy-scaling method of high-order harmonic generation, the maximum pulse energy of the isolated attosecond pulse reaches as high as 1.3 μJ. The generated pulse with a duration of 500 as, as characterized by a nonlinear autocorrelation measurement, is the shortest and highest-energy pulse ever with the ability to induce nonlinear phenomena. The peak power of our tabletop light source reaches 2.6 GW, which even surpasses that of an extreme-ultraviolet free-electron laser.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Experimentally obtained single-shot HH spectra from Xe.
Blue curve: OC laser field (800 nm: 11 mJ); red curve: TC laser field (800 nm: 9 mJ+1,300 nm: 2.5 mJ). Green dotted curve: reflectivity of the Sc/Si multilayer mirror; black dotted curve: reflectivity of the SiC bulk mirror. Inset: (a) measured intensity variation of the HH cutoff (~29 eV: 19th HH order) over 200 laser shots. (b) The spatial profile of the cutoff harmonics of the TC-HHG.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Measured AC traces from the side peak of N+ ion signals.
(a) Mid-plateau of TC-HH; (b) mid-plateau of OC-HH. The time resolutions of the top and bottom panels correspond to 148 and 28 as, respectively. The error bars show the s.d. of each data point. The grey solid profiles are the AC traces of the simulated HH spectrum. Inset of (a): measured TOF spectrum of ions at around m/z=14. The inverted triangles and black-filled inverted triangle correspond to the KE of 3 and 0 eV, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Measured AC traces of an IAP obtained from the side peak of N+ ion signals.
The time resolutions of the top and bottom panels correspond to 148 and 28 as, respectively. The error bars show the s.d. of each data point. The grey solid profiles are AC traces obtained using the simulated HH fields.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Evaluation of the relative phase.
(a) Measured relative phase versus time. (b) A histogram obtained from a with a normal distribution fit (black solid curve). The intensity ratio of the CEP-averaged profile of the main (blue solid curve), pre- (red dotted curve) and post-pulse (red solid curve). The grey-filled area corresponds to the ±σ area.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Calculation procedure.
Calculation procedure for evaluating the temporal profile of HHs.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Averaged temporal profiles and their AC traces in TC-HHG.
(a) Mid-plateau of TC-HH; (b) cutoff of TC-HH. The filled curves and dashed curves exhibit the averaged temporal profiles and their AC traces, respectively. The yellow highlighted region shows the time interval measured in the experiment.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Progress of the energy of IAPs used in attosecond experiments.
Red circles: previous milestone results using various schemes; blue points: our HHG source. IG, ionization gating; PG, polarization gating; DOG, double optical gating; GDOG, generalized DOG. We indicate the required laser pulse duration and CEP stabilization (CEPS) for each generation scheme. Note the dramatic leap in IAP energy, which is used in an attosecond experiment, by two orders of magnitude achieved in this work.
Figure 8
Figure 8. HH yield as a function of the wavelength ratio K=λ1/λ0.
The relative intensity ratio ξ=IIR/I800nm is fixed to be 0.15. Dashed line: α=0.7 scaling. Inset: scaling exponent α (from HH yield formula image K−α) as a function of ξ.
Figure 9
Figure 9. Schematic figure of the HHG setup and the second-order autocorrelator.
The AC setup (bottom part) is composed of a pair of Si harmonic separators and controls the delay (Δt) between the two replicas of the reflected pulse. The two replica pulses with Δt delay time are focused by a concave mirror (SiC bulk or Sc/Si multilayer) onto a molecular beam of N2. The fragment ions from N2 molecules, which are introduced through a skimmer from a pulsed gas jet, are detected by a TOF ion mass spectrograph, which is constructed from three electrodes, a flight tube, and a microchannel plate (MCP).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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