Abstract
We demonstrate that nonlinear frequency upconversion of few-cycle near-infrared (NIR) laser pulses, by means of harmonic generation in noble gases, is a promising approach for extending cutting-edge, few-cycle ultrafast technology into the deep ultraviolet and beyond, without the need for UV dispersion control. In our experiment, we generate 3.7-fs pulses in the deep UV (approximately 4.6 eV) with adjustable polarization and gigawatt-scale peak power. We demonstrate that the implementation of this concept with a quasi-monocycle driver offers the potential for advancing UV pulse generation towards the 1-fs frontier.
Highlights
Ultrashort pulse laser sources are important tools for gaining insight into a wide range of microscopic processes via time-resolved spectroscopy
Polarization-controlled few-femtosecond pulses readily available in the deep ultraviolet, the door is open to a wide range of applications that include the ultrafast electron-controlled reactivity of molecules [10] to the generation of giant magnetic fields by driving electron ring currents in molecules with circularly-polarized few-cycle UV light [33]
Carrier-envelope phase control is best transferred to UV pulses [35] in the absence of compression modules [36]
Summary
Ultrashort pulse laser sources are important tools for gaining insight into a wide range of microscopic processes via time-resolved spectroscopy. Ultrafast processes in the microcosm include atomic motion in molecules, which can be traced [1] and controlled [2] with femtosecond laser pulses, as well as electronic motion inside and between atoms, such as electron tunneling in atoms [3] or angstrom-scale charge transport in solid matter [4], which have been made perceivable with attosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses and waveformcontrolled few-cycle NIR light [5, 6]. Preparation of a wavepacket comprised of the coherent superposition of the excited electronic states requires a broadband UV or deep UV pulse, whose transform-limited duration (τUV ~ ΔWexc ) ranges from a few femtoseconds to a few hundred attoseconds. Electron wavepacket control in molecules requires the extension of few-cycle laser technology, which is well established in the near infrared [11], into the deep ultraviolet spectral range and beyond
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