Ellipticity control of high-order harmonic generation with nearly orthogonal two-color laser fields

Abstract

Elliptically polarized high-order harmonics opens a path toward the study of ultrafast dynamics in circular dichroism of magnetic materials, chiral molecules, and electronic spin motion. Recently, efficient high-order harmonic generation with controllable ellipticity has attracted considerable attention in experiment and theory. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a scenario using cross-linearly-polarized two-color fields consisting of a fundamental field and its second harmonic (SH). Through adjusting the relative phase, crossing angle, and intensity ratio of the cross-linearly-polarized two-color field, we obtain ellipticity-tunable high-order harmonics, with ellipticity up to $\ensuremath{\varepsilon}=0.73$. Meanwhile, the elliptically polarized high-order harmonics preserve high efficiency. Furthermore, when the intensity of the SH field is stronger than that of the fundamental field, the even order harmonics will become several times stronger than the odd order harmonics with opposite helicity.