Abstract
New theoretical and numerical results are presented regarding isolated attosecond XUV – soft X-ray pulses, that can be generated by Thomson-backscattering of a high-intensity single-cycle near-infrared laser pulse on a suitable nanobunch of MeV electons. A simple approximate formula is derived for the cut-off frequency of the collective radiation spectrum, which is then employed to find the length of the nanobunch which emits an isolated pulse of 16 as length. Detailed analysis of the spectral, temporal and spatial features of this attosecond pulse is given. It is also shown that the 100 nJ pulse energy, corresponding to 2.1 × 1018W/cm2 peak intensity of the laser pulse, can be increased to reach the μJ pulse energy both by increasing the intensity or by setting a suitable down-chirp of the laser pulse.Graphical abstract
Highlights
Attosecond pulses of “light”, usually in the XUV – soft X-ray spectral range, allow us to experimentally access the real time electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and solids [1]
Applying the considerations and results of the previous section, we evaluate the radiation spectrum emitted by an electron and by an electron bunch, moving according to the solution of equations (2)–(3)
Our theoretical investigations show that the Thomsonbackscattering of a near infrared (NIR) laser pulse on a suitable relativistic electron nanobunch is a promising source of an isolated attosecond XUV – soft X-ray pulse, having advantageous features
Summary
Attosecond pulses of “light”, usually in the XUV – soft X-ray spectral range, allow us to experimentally access the real time electron dynamics in atoms, molecules and solids [1]. In our earlier works [11,12], we already showed that Thomson-backscattering of a linearly polarized near-infrared few-cycle laser pulse on a suitable electron bunch may provide isolated attosecond pulses in the XUV – soft X-ray spectral range, including the 2.33–4.37 nm water window. The radiation emission by lasergenerated electron nanobunches has been studied in [23,24,25], where the authors predicted the generation of extremely dense electron bunches in the few 10–100 nm length range having a few MeV energy Based on these developments, relativistic electron nanobunches with parameters used in the present paper are expected to be available in the near future. We show that the energy of the attosecond pulse can be increased from the nJ to the μJ energy range by increasing the intensity or by setting a suitable value for the chirp of the driving laser pulse
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