Efficient generation of an isolated single-cycle attosecond pulse

Abstract

A method for efficiently generating an isolated single-cycle attosecond pulse is proposed. It is shown that the ultraviolet (UV) attosecond (as) pulse can be utilized as a robust tool to control the dynamics of electron wave packets (EWPs). By adding a UV attosecond pulse to an infrared (IR) few-cycle pulse at a proper time, only one return of the EWP to the parent ion is selected to effectively contribute to the harmonics; then, an isolated two-cycle $130\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{as}$ pulse with a bandwidth of $45\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}$ is obtained. After complementing the chirp, an isolated single-cycle attosecond pulse with a duration less than $100\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{as}$ seems achievable. In addition, the contribution of the quantum trajectories can be selected by adjusting the delay between the IR and UV fields. Using this method, the harmonic and attosecond pulse yields are efficiently enhanced in contrast to the scheme [G. Sansone et al., Science 314, 443 (2006)] using a few-cycle IR pulse in combination with the polarization gating technique.