Abstract
Lasers can be used to steer an electron, yielding extreme-ultraviolet light pulses when the accelerated electron recollides with its parent atom. Researchers have enhanced the flux of the extreme-ultraviolet pulses by a factor of 100, enabling the study of extremely fast (subfemtosecond) electron dynamics.
Highlights
Controlling the shape of the driving laser waveform allows direct steering of the quasifree electron trajectories at the heart of strong-field phenomena [1,2]
In the development of high-harmonic generation (HHG) light sources, it was shown that such two-color fields can enhance the spectral content and brightness of the generated extreme ultraviolet (XUV) emission [5]
Since in such fields the conditions for the recollision of trajectories have to be satisfied in two independent dimensions, the selection of ionization instants that lead to harmonic emission is more severe than for parallel polarizations
Summary
Controlling the shape of the driving laser waveform allows direct steering of the quasifree electron trajectories at the heart of strong-field phenomena [1,2]. The most substantial efficiency enhancements have been reported for orthogonally polarized two-color combinations of a fundamental with its second harmonic [11,16] Since in such fields the conditions for the recollision of trajectories have to be satisfied in two independent dimensions, the selection of ionization instants that lead to harmonic emission is more severe than for parallel polarizations. We apply shaped optical cycles, synthesized from three discrete spectral bands covering 1.6 octaves, to the complex optimization task of efficient launch, acceleration, and return of the electron trajectories in HHG This addresses a fundamental bottleneck in HHG driven by a sinusoidal driver of wavelength λ and intensity I, which determine the highest achievable electron energy at recollision, 3.2Up, where Up ∝ Iλ2. We realize such optimized three-color waveforms and demonstrate the efficacy of the “perfect wave” concept even in realistic experimental conditions where macroscopic propagation effects are significant
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