Attosecond nonlinear optics using gigawatt-scale isolated attosecond pulses
Open Access
- 25 October 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Communications
- Vol. 4 (1), 2691
- https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3691
Abstract
High-energy isolated attosecond pulses required for the most intriguing nonlinear attosecond experiments as well as for attosecond-pump/attosecond-probe spectroscopy are still lacking at present. Here we propose and demonstrate a robust generation method of intense isolated attosecond pulses, which enable us to perform a nonlinear attosecond optics experiment. By combining a two-colour field synthesis and an energy-scaling method of high-order harmonic generation, the maximum pulse energy of the isolated attosecond pulse reaches as high as 1.3 μJ. The generated pulse with a duration of 500 as, as characterized by a nonlinear autocorrelation measurement, is the shortest and highest-energy pulse ever with the ability to induce nonlinear phenomena. The peak power of our tabletop light source reaches 2.6 GW, which even surpasses that of an extreme-ultraviolet free-electron laser.Keywords
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