Efficient enhancement of below-threshold harmonic generation by laser-driven excited states of Cs atom

Abstract

We propose an efficient method for the enhancement of below-threshold harmonic generation (BTHG) by mid-infrared laser-driven excited states of a Cs atom. The BTHG is calculated by solving three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation accurately and efficiently using the time-dependent generalized pseudospectral method. We adopt an excited state as the initial state of a Cs atom. As a result, the BTHG is significantly enhanced by two orders of magnitude compared with the case of the initial ground state. Furthermore, we find that a single vacuum-ultraviolet pulse can be generated by mid-infrared laser-driven excited states by superposing several below-threshold harmonics of a Cs atom. Our finding suggests that the generation of below-threshold harmonics by laser-driven excited states of an atom can provide a powerful methodology for the production of intense vacuum-ultraviolet pulses.