Isolated Attosecond Research Articles

Inhomogeneous Double Optical Gating of High-Intensity Isolated Attosecond Pulse Generation in Crossed Metal Nanostructures

We propose and investigate an effective method for obtaining high-energy and high-intensity isolated attosecond pulses (IAPs) using the inhomogeneous double optical gating (DOG) technology in specifically designed metal nanostructures. First, using the homogeneous mid-infrared DOG technology modulated by a linearly near-infrared field, we obtain a harmonic yield of 2.5 orders of magnitudes higher than that from the single polarization gating (PG) technology. Further, introducing the crossed metal nanostructures along the driven and gating components, we can extend not only the harmonic cutoff but also enhance the harmonic yield attributed to the plasmonic field enhancement near the vicinity of metal nanostructures. As a result, we find a single harmonic plateau with smaller modulations. The supercontinuum is not very sensitive to the pulse duration of the near-infrared field, and the harmonic yields can be further enhanced with increase in the pulse intensity of the near-infrared field, showing a 108 eV supercontinuum with an intensity enhancement of 4 orders of magnitudes. Finally, by superposing the selected harmonics from the inhomogeneous DOG scheme, we obtain a 33 as SAP with an intensity increase of 4 orders of magnitudes.

Nonlinear Attosecond Metrology by Intense Isolated Attosecond Pulses

For the future progress of nonlinear attosecond science, one of the most important issues is the development of high-energy isolated attosecond pulse sources. In this paper, we review our research on the energy-scaling method for isolated attosecond pulse generation, which combines infrared two-color gating and an energy-scaling method of high-order harmonic generation. By establishing the robust energy-scaling method, the maximum pulse energy of the isolated attosecond pulse reaches 1.3 $\mu$ J/pulse in the XUV region, which is almost 100-fold higher than the values ever reported before. The pulse duration of this isolated attosecond pulse is directly measured to be 500 as by the autocorrelation method using the nonlinear interaction of N $_2$ . This nonlinear experiment clearly shows that our developed isolated attosecond pulse has enough pulse energy to make a breakthrough for nonlinear attosecond metrology as well as for attosecond-pump/attosecond-probe experiments investigating electronic processes. In addition, we further extend the high-energy harmonic continuum by using the infrared two-color gating method up to the soft-x-ray region. With the aim to temporally characterize an isolated attosecond pulse in the soft-x-ray region, we demonstrate the first observation of above-threshold ionization of He with two-photon absorption of multiple higher harmonics in the soft-x-ray region.

Generation of Linear Isolated Sub-60 Attosecond Pulses by Combining a Circularly Polarized Pulse with an Elliptically Polarized Pulse**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11404204 and 11447208, the Key Project of Chinese Ministry of Education under Grant No 211025, the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China under Grant No 20111404120004,

The two-color circularly polarized pulses scheme was proposed to generate isolated attosecond pulses in our previous work [Phys. Rev. A 87 (2013) 043406], while the polarization of the attosecond pulse was not investigated. We show a supplementary explanation of this scheme and present another scheme to generate linear isolated attosecond pulses by combining a circularly polarized pulse with an elliptically polarized pulse. High-order harmonic generation and quantum path control are investigated to compare these two schemes. Both schemes can obtain supercontinuum spectra plateau from about 200 eV to 550 eV, which belong to the water window region. It is found that the latter scheme can clearly eliminate the short quantum path and extend the harmonic plateau. A linear isolated attosecond pulse with a duration of sub-60 as can be generated by superposing a bandwidth of 70 eV.

High-Order Harmonic Extension and Generation of Single Isolated Attosecond Pulse in Hydrogen Gas by Using Plasmonic Field Enhancement

High-Order Harmonic Extension and Generation of Single Isolated Attosecond Pulse in Hydrogen Gas by Using Plasmonic Field Enhancement

Few-Cycle Driven Relativistically Oscillating Plasma Mirrors: A Source of Intense Isolated Attosecond Pulses

The conditions required for the production of isolated attosecond pulses from relativistically oscillating mirrors (ROM) are investigated numerically and experimentally. In simulations, carrier-envelope-phase-stabilized three-cycle pulses are found to be sufficient to produce isolated attosecond pulses, while two-cycle pulses will predominantly lead to isolated attosecond pulses even in the absence of carrier-envelope stabilization. Using a state-of-the-art laser system delivering three-cycle pulses at multiple-terawatt level, we have generated higher harmonics up to 70eV photon energy via the ROM mechanism. The observed spectra are in agreement with theoretical expectations and highlight the potential of few-cycle-driven ROM harmonics for intense isolated attosecond pulse generation for performing extreme ultraviolet-pump extreme ultraviolet-probe experiments.

Simulation of Intense Isolated Attosecond Pulse Generation with a Two-color Laser Field

Simulation of Intense Isolated Attosecond Pulse Generation with a Two-color Laser Field