Abstract
We investigate the temporal precision in the generation of ultrashort laser pulse pairs by pulse shaping techniques. To this end, we combine a femtosecond polarization pulse shaper with a polarizer and employ two linear spectral phase masks to mimic an ultrastable common-path interferometer. In an all-optical experiment we study the interference signal resulting from two temporally delayed pulses. Our results show a 2σ-precision of 300 zs = 300 × 10(-21) s in pulse-to-pulse delay. The standard deviation of the mean is 11 zs. The obtained precision corresponds to a variation of the arm's length in conventional delay stage based interferometers of 0.45 Å. We apply these precisely generated pulse pairs to a strong-field quantum control experiment. Coherent control of ultrafast electron dynamics via photon locking by temporal phase discontinuities on a few attosecond timescale is demonstrated.
Highlights
In the past two decades, with the availability of ultrafast lasers and the associated optical techniques, coherent ultrashort light pulses have become an extremely powerful tool for the investigation, manipulation and control of ultrafast processes occurring on timescales down to the attosecond regime
The spectrum of the oscillator pulses after passing the pulse shaper obtained for a flat phase applied to both layers of the Liquid Crystal-Spatial Light Modulator (LC-SLM) is displayed in the inset to Fig. 2(a)
We have presented an all-optical approach to implement an extremely stable high-precision common-path interferometer for ultrashort laser pulse applications based on spectral femtosecond pulse shaping techniques
Summary
In the past two decades, with the availability of ultrafast lasers and the associated optical techniques, coherent ultrashort light pulses have become an extremely powerful tool for the investigation, manipulation and control of ultrafast processes occurring on timescales down to the attosecond regime. In [9, 10] (and references therein) high precision coherent control experiments based on pairs of femtosecond laser pulses being phase-locked within the attosecond timescale are presented. In these experiments the pulse pairs are generated by a highly stabilized Michelson interferometer assembled inside a vacuum chamber. Attosecond techniques are commonly considered to be the appropriate tools to efficiently manipulate electron dynamics In this contribution we demonstrate that ultrafast electron dynamics is controlled on the sub-10 as timescale employing a pair of precisely timed femtosecond laser pulses with a temporal separation controllable down to zeptosecond precision. In the appendix details about the data evaluation of the all-optical experiment are given
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