Carrier-envelope Phase Effects Research Articles

CEP-controlled supercontinuum generation during filamentation with mid-infrared laser pulse.

With carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilized mid-infrared (MIR) laser pulse, the CEP-controlled supercontinuum generation can be distinctly observed in a very small distance range when the focus of the laser pulse closes to the exit surface of the fused silica (FS). This CEP effect will be gradually weakened and finally disappears if the laser focus moves out of this range. With numerical simulation, we find that although the CEP effect starts from the tunneling ionization of the electron, it can be observed only when the supercontinuum mainly comes from the self-phase modulation (SPM) and self-steepening of the laser pulse and too much electrons will make it ambiguous.

Carrier-envelope phase effects on high-harmonic generation driven by mid-infrared laser field

The influence of the carrier-envelope phase on high-harmonic generation is investigated, both experimentally and theoretically, for three different interaction gas media, driven by mid-infrared, few-cycle and CEP-stabilized laser pulses. Different patterns of harmonic spectra with varying CEP for the three interaction gas media are observed. Furthermore, in comparing our experiment results to the previous works driven by near-infrared laser pulses, different phenomena are found. Through numerical simulation, we find that for the two different kinds of driving fields, i.e. mid-infrared and near-infrared laser pulses, different kinds of electron trajectories contribute to the generation of high harmonics.

Carrier-envelope phase effects on the spatial coherence of high-order harmonics.

In this work, we report the Carrier-Envelope Phase Effects on the Spatial Coherence of High-order Harmonics driven by phase-stabilized few-cycle mid-infrared laser pulses. The degree of coherence varies with carrier-envelope phase periodically with a period of π. At the same time, as the harmonic orders increase, the extreme points on the curve of coherence degree vs. carrier-envelope phase shift toward the direction of carrier-envelope phase increasing. Through theoretical analysis, we find that the ionization induced frequency chirp plays an important role in the Carrier-Envelope Phase Effects on the Spatial Coherence. This effect suggests a possible method to optimize the spatial coherence of harmonics by tuning the carrier-envelope phase of the driving field.

The effect carrier-envelope phase on the cut-off of molecular harmonic generation

We investigated the high-order harmonic generation from H+2 ion radiated by a few cycle infrared laser field. Our numerical simulations show that there exists a highly efficient plateau structure in the molecular harmonic spectrum. The carrier envelope phase effect on the cut-off of this plateau is investigated.

Investigation of the carrier envelope phase effect for molecular ionization

In the interaction between the matter and the intense laser pulses of which only include a few optical cycles, the carrier envelope phase (CEP) of pulses will play an important role on strong field phenomena, such as the high-order harmonic generation and above threshold ionization etc. In this work, we investigated the influence of CEP on the molecular ionization.

Carrier Envelope Phase Effect of a Long Duration Pulse in the Low Frequency Region

Using the characteristic of small energy difference between two high Rydberg states, we theoretically investigate the carrier envelope phase (CEP) effect in a bound-bound transition of an atom in a low-frequency long laser pulse with tens of optical cycles. Particularly, we first prepare a Rydberg state of a hydrogen-like atom by a laser field with the resonant frequency between this state and the ground state. Then by using a low-frequency long laser pulse interacting with this Rydberg atom, we calculate the population of another Rydberg state nearby this Rydberg state at the end of the laser pulse and find that the population changes dramatically with the CEP of the low-frequency pulse. This CEP effect is attributed to the interference between the positive-frequency and negative-frequency components in one-photon transition. These results may provide a method to measure the CEP value of a long laser pulse with low frequency.

Erratum: Carrier-envelope phase effects on the strong-field photoemission of electrons from metallic nanostructures

Björn Piglosiewicz et al. Nature Photonics http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.288 (2013); published online 19 November 2013; corrected online 19 November 2013. In the version of this Letter originally published online, one beam was missing in the interferometer section depicted in the schematic shown in Fig.

Carrier-envelope phase effects on the strong-field photoemission of electrons from metallic nanostructures

Sharp metallic nanotapers irradiated with few-cycle laser pulses are emerging as a source of highly confined coherent electron wavepackets with attosecond duration and strong directivity. The possibility to steer, control or switch such electron wavepackets by light is expected to pave the way towards direct visualization of nanoplasmonic field dynamics and real-time probing of electron motion in solid state nanostructures. Such pulses can be generated by strong-field induced tunneling and acceleration of electrons in the near-field of sharp gold tapers within one half-cycle of the driving laser field. Here, we show the effect of the carrier-envelope phase of the laser field on the generation and motion of strong-field emitted electrons from such tips. This is a step forward towards controlling the coherent electron motion in and around metallic nanostructures on ultrashort length and time scales.

Control of electron localization to isolate and enhance molecular harmonic plateau in asymmetric HeH2+ system

Abstract High-order harmonic generation from the asymmetric molecular ion HeH2+ exposed to intense laser fields was investigated by quantum wave packet calculations in which the initial wave packet of HeH2+ was prepared in the first excited 2 p σ state. The calculated molecular harmonic plateau at low frequencies was effectively isolated and enhanced by adjusting the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the laser field. Furthermore, double-well model, time-dependent electronic density, electronic state population, and time-frequency analyses were presented to explain the underlying mechanism of the efficient isolated molecular plateau. By taking advantage of the CEP effect to control the electronic dynamics, this isolated molecular plateau can be used to generate high-intensity single attosecond pulses.

Observation of CEP effect via filamentation in transparent solids

We report on the first direct observation of carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) effect during the interaction between few-cycle laser pulses and bulk solid materials. Using 2-cycle mid-infrared laser pulses with stabilized CEP, the CEP effect of tunneling ionization during the laser filamentation in a fused silica is revealed. The phase variation of the accompanying supercontinuum (SC) emission with filamentation at different CEPs of laser pulses can be measured by means of spectral interference technique, as a direct manifestation of the strong field tunneling ionization dynamics in transparent solids.

Effects of laser pulse shape and carrier envelope phase on pair production

For different fields of supercycle and subcycle laser pulses, the effects of laser pulse shape and carrier envelope phase on pair production are investigated by solving quantum Vlasov equation. By changing the pulse width and shape, the nonlinear behaviors of momentum distribution function and number density of created electron–positron pairs are obtained. It is found that there exist the multiphoton processes and stabilization phenomenon in pair production for supercycle situation. Our study may shed a light on optimizing the form of applied laser field to enhance the created pairs number, for example, when other conditions are fixed, the flat-top super-Gaussian laser pulse has advantage on pairs production.

Carrier-Envelope Phase Effects of a Single Attosecond Pulse in Two-Color Photoionization

The attosecond streak camera method is usually implemented to characterize the temporal phase and amplitude of isolated attosecond pulses produced by high-order harmonic generation. This approach, however, does not provide any information about the carrier-envelope phase of the attosecond pulses. We demonstrate that the photoelectron spectra generated by an attosecond waveform and an intense synchronized infrared field are sensitive to the electric field of the attosecond pulse. The dependence on the carrier-envelope phase of the attosecond pulse is understood in terms of the coherent superposition of two photoelectron wave packets. This effect suggests an experimentally feasible method for complete reconstruction of attosecond waveforms.

Enhanced ionization of the non-symmetric HeH+ molecule driven by intense ultrashort laser pulses

We study enhanced single and double ionizations and enhanced single and double excitations in the nonsymmetric two-electron diatomic molecular ion HeH(+) in an intense ultrashort laser pulse linearly polarized along the internuclear axis (z axis). We solve a three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation, TDSE, via correlated two-electron ab initio calculations within the fixed-nuclei approximation. A complex scaling method is used for calculation of both single and double ionizations. These nonperturbative processes increase with large internuclear distance R and reach a maximum at some critical distance R(c) and decrease by further increase of R. This enhanced ionization (EI) at R(c) is accompanied by enhanced single and double excitation processes. Furthermore, EI is stronger when the permanent dipole moment of the molecule and the electric field at the peak of the laser pulse are antiparallel than when they are parallel. We predict analytically the R(c) at which the enhancement of all these molecular processes happens in HeH(+) from a simple quasistatic model and investigate the effect of Carrier Envelope Phase on these nonlinear nonperturbative processes.

Coherent Control at Its Most Fundamental: Carrier-Envelope-Phase-Dependent Electron Localization in Photodissociation of aH2+Molecular Ion Beam Target

Measurements and calculations of the absolute carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) effects in the photodissociation of the simplest molecule, H2(+), with a 4.5-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulse at intensities up to (4±2)×10(14) W/cm2 are presented. Localization of the electron with respect to the two nuclei (during the dissociation process) is controlled via the CEP of the ultrashort laser pulses. In contrast to previous CEP-dependent experiments with neutral molecules, the dissociation of the molecular ions is not preceded by a photoionization process, which strongly influences the CEP dependence. Kinematically complete data are obtained by time- and position-resolved coincidence detection. The phase dependence is determined by a single-shot phase measurement correlated to the detection of the dissociation fragments. The experimental results show quantitative agreement with ab initio 3D time-dependent Schrödinger equation calculations that include nuclear vibration and rotation.

Ultrashort-laser-pulse-mediated asymmetry in the branching of dissociated fragments of HD+: Effects of a weak third pulse and carrier envelope phase of the dissociating pulse

We have numerically explored the possibility of controlling the branching ratio of the two distinguishable photodissociation products of HD${}^{+}$ (neutral D and neutral H) in an ultrashort laser field. In our multipulse scheme, a bound vibrational wave packet is generated in the ground electronic state of HD${}^{+}$ by vertical ionization from the ground state of HD. The control pulse acts on this wave packet at different time delays after the wave-packet generation is completed. It was found that, for a broad range of delay times between the pump pulse and the control pulse, any possible asymmetry in the branching ratio disappears due to the nonadiabatic coupling effects present in HD${}^{+}$. A third pulse, termed the driving pulse, with a relatively longer duration and a much weaker field strength, is introduced to counterbalance the nonadiabatic effects relevant for this heteronuclear system and to guide the dissociative reaction to a specific product channel. In fact, we have shown that the application of the driving pulse reproduces the branching-ratio pattern obtained on variation in the interpulse delay time between the pump pulse and the control pulse in the absence of the nonadiabatic coupling effects. The role of both the delay time between the pump pulse and the control pulse as well as the carrier envelope phase effects of the optical field of the control laser on the branching ratios in the two reaction channels were studied. The robustness of the driving pulse mediated asymmetry control, and any possible introduction of asymmetry by the driving pulse itself were also investigated.

Effects of driving laser jitter on the attosecond streaking measurement

Driving laser jitter is one of the main factors affecting the attosecond streaking measurement. The effect of carrier-envelope phase (CEP) jitter and the pulse energy jitter on the attosecond pulse characterization is studied in this paper. We have theoretically calculated and experimentally confirmed that CEP jitter could result in a symmetry trace in the streaking spectrogram, while the intensity jitter could result in a slight shift and broadening of the trace. Both of them can lead to an underestimate of the retrieved attosecond pulse duration.

Asymmetries in production of He+(n=2)with an intense few-cycle attosecond pulse

By solving the two-electron time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation, we study carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) effects on ionization plus excitation of He to He${}^{+}(n=2)$ states by a few-cycle attosecond pulse with a carrier frequency of 51 eV. For most CEPs the asymmetries in the photoelectron angular distributions with excitation of He${}^{+}(2s)$ or He${}^{+}(2p)$ have opposite signs and are two orders of magnitude larger than for ionization without excitation. These results indicate that attosecond pulse CEP effects may be significantly amplified in correlated two-electron ionization processes.

Carrier-envelope phase effects of over-saturated few-cycle laser pulses on high-order harmonic generation

We investigate theoretically the high-order harmonic generation driven by few-cycle laser pulses with intensities above the saturated intensity using the Lewenstein model. It is found that the carrier-envelope phase of the laser pulse has great influences on the coherence of the high-order harmonic spectrum in the plateau region when driven by a relatively weaker driver field in the oversaturated regime. While for a much higher intensity the coherence of the high-order harmonic spectrum is almost independent on the carrier-envelope phase.

Carrier envelope phase effects induced by weak multicycle pulses: Localized quantum dynamics in double well potentials

We study the laser-driven quantum dynamics in a double well potential. Within a two-pulse excitation scheme the first pulse prepares a linear combination of excited states with ungerade symmetry. The interaction with a second uncorrelated pulse of low intensity results in coherent superpositions of states with gerade and ungerade symmetry. This is associated with a localization of excited state wave packets. It is shown that the carrier envelope phase of the second laser pulse critically influences this time-dependent localization.

Carrier–envelope phase effects on ionization dynamics of atomic clusters irradiated by intense laser pulses of a few cycles

A three-dimensional molecular dynamic approach is employed to investigate the ionization dynamics of small Xe400 clusters irradiated by intense lasers (I = 1016W cm−2) in the near infrared wavelength region (λ = 800 nm). The pulse duration of the incident laser is varied from a few cycles (τ = 2T0 with T0 as one laser time cycle) to many cycles (τ = 8T0). In the case of pulse durations of a few cycles, the carrier–envelope (CE) phase of the incident laser electric field is found to be an important parameter that affects the ionization dynamics of Xe clusters. The fractions of various ionized Xe species are observed to be different for the two values of the CE phases (ϕ = 0 and ϕ = π/2) in the case of the shorter laser pulse duration of τ = 2T0. The nature of the instantaneous electric field (the rising or falling edge of the field) at the time of birth of the electron due to ionization decides the extent of ionization. The difference in time-evolution of the electric field for the two values of the CE phase leads to an observable disparity in the yield of various ionic species. For the case of a pulse duration of many cycles (τ = 8T0), these differences average out and we do not observe any change in the yield of various ionic species for the two values of the CE phase.