The direct evaluation of attosecond chirp from a streaking measurement

We derive an analytical expression that relates the breadth of a streaked photoelectron spectrum to the group-delay dispersion of an isolated attosecond pulse. Based on this analytical expression, we introduce a simple, efficient and robust procedure to instantly extract the attosecond pulse’s chirp from the streaking measurement. We show that our method is robust against experimental artifacts.     

Use of electron correlation to make attosecond measurements without attosecond pulses

We describe how correlations between electrons can be used to trace the dynamics of correlated two-electron ionization with attosecond precision, without using attosecond pulses. The approach is illustrated using the example of Auger or Coster-Kronig decay triggered by photoionization with an extreme ultraviolet pulse. It requires correlated measurements of angle-resolved energy spectra of both the photo- and Auger electrons in the presence of a laser pulse. To reconstruct the dynamics, we use not only classical time and energy correlation, but also entanglement between the two electrons.     

Numerical characterization of high harmonic attosecond pulses

A numerical simulation of attosecond harmonic pulse generation in a three-dimensional field-ionizing gas is presented. Calculated harmonic efficiencies quantitatively reproduce experimental findings. This allows a quantitative characterization of attosecond pulse generation revealing information currently not accessible by experiment. The rapid phase variation and spatiotemporal distortions of harmonics are smaller than anticipated, allowing focusing of 30-nm, 750-as pulses to intensities in excess of 10(13) W/cm(2). Feasibility of such pulses brings novel applications such as extreme ultraviolet nonlinear optics and attosecond pump probe spectroscopy within reach.     

Manifestation of attosecond XUV fields temporal structures in attosecond streaking spectrogram

The features of an attosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) field are encoded in the attosecond XUV spectrogram. We investigate the effect of the temporal structures of attosecond XUV fields on the attosecond streaking spectrogram. Factors such as the number of attosecond XUV pulses and the temporal chirp of attosecond XUV pulses are considered. Results indicate that unlike the attosecond streaking spectrogram for an attosecond XUV field with two pulses of a half-cycle separation of streaking field, the spectrogram for the attosecond XUV field with three pulses demonstrates fine spectral fringes in separated traces.     

Vectorial phase retrieval for linear characterization of attosecond pulses

The waveforms of attosecond pulses produced by high-harmonic generation carry information on the electronic structure and dynamics in atomic and molecular systems. Current methods for the temporal characterization of such pulses have limited sensitivity and impose significant experimental complexity. We propose a new linear and all-optical method inspired by widely used multidimensional phase retrieval algorithms. Our new scheme is based on the spectral measurement of two attosecond sources and their interference. As an example, we focus on the case of spectral polarization measurements of attosecond pulses, relying on their most fundamental property-being well confined in time. We demonstrate this method numerically by reconstructing the temporal profiles of attosecond pulses generated from aligned CO(2) molecules.     

A dispersionless Michelson interferometer for the characterization of attosecond pulses

A novel application of a free-standing transmission grating as a beam splitter in a Michelson-type interferometer is described. The arrangement can operate in the XUV and soft X-ray spectral region and, therefore, it is well suited for the characterization of attosecond pulses. Using ray-tracing codes, we have analyzed three different setups in which spherical mirrors are employed in conjunction with the transmission grating and have investigated in detail their dispersive characteristics. It is shown that such an arrangement can be made to exhibit group-delay dispersion of ∼1 as² while it provides two co-propagating and converging beams. Received: 12 October 2001 / Revised version: 17 December 2001 / Published online: 7 February 2002     

High resolution FROG system for the characterization of ps laser pulses

We report on a frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) system which allows the reconstruction of amplitude and phase of picosecond pulses generated by mode-locked diode laser oscillators and amplifiers. The main challenge of developing such a FROG system is the required high spectral resolution. In the spectrometer a cylindrical grating with 1200 lines/mm and a radius of curvature of 3 m is used. A width of the illuminated area of 15 cm provides in a spectral resolution exceeding 2 GHz (1.4 pm) at 460 nm. The FROG system is, thus, well suited for analyzing ps-pulses with durations of up to 80 ps and a corresponding fourier-limited spectral width of 0.017 nm. PACS 42.55.Px; 42.65.Re; 42.60.Fc; 42.30.Rx     

Temporal structure of attosecond pulses from intense laser-atom interactions

We find that the high harmonics have a power-law spectrum I(omega) approximately omega(-3.3+/-0.25) in a wide frequency domain starting at the ionization potential I(p) and down to the plateau beginning. Our spectrotemporal analysis of the emitted radiation displays clear bowlike structures in the (t,omega) plane. These "bows" correspond to Corkum's reencounters of the freed electron with the atom. We find that the bows are not filled and thus cannot be due to any bremsstrahlung. Rather, it is a resonant process that we call stimulated recombination (SR). It occurs when an electron with momentum p reencounters the incompletely ionized atom, and interferes with itself still remaining in the ground state. The SR leads to a highly efficient resonant emission at Planck's over 2pi omega=p(2)/2m+I(p) in the form of attosecond pulses. The SR relies on a low level of ionization and strongly benefits from the use of few-cycle laser pulses.     

Ensemble of ultra-high intensity attosecond pulses from laser-plasma interaction

The efficient generation of intense X-rays and γ-radiation is studied. The scheme is based on the relativistic mirror concept, i.e., a flying thin plasma slab interacts with a counterpropagating laser pulse, reflecting part of it in the form of an intense ultra-short electromagnetic pulse having an up-shifted frequency. In the proposed scheme a series of relativistic mirrors is generated in the interaction of the intense laser with a thin foil target as the pulse tears off and accelerates thin electron layers. A counterpropagating pulse is reflected by these flying layers in the form of an ensemble of ultra-short pulses resulting in a significant energy gain of the reflected radiation due to the momentum transfer from flying layers.     

Characterization of attosecond XUV pulses from photoelectron spectra of atoms

A method to characterize attosecond extreme ultra violet (XUV) pulses from photoelectron spectra of atoms is presented. A pump pulse prepares a coherent superposition of two atomic bound states, from which photoionization takes place after variable time delays by the attosecond XUV pulse. Information on the spectral phase of the attosecond XUV pulse is extracted from the analysis of photoelectron spectra as a function of photoelectron energy and time delay. Together with information on the spectral intensity obtained from a separate optical measurement, a temporal shape of the attosecond XUV pulse can be precisely reconstructed. After the theoretical formulation of the problem, we present numerical examples for H atom and show that, depending on the choice of energy separation of two bound states, a different accuracy is reached to characterize attosecond XUV pulses.     

阿秒激光脉冲的新进展

文章概述了阿秒脉冲产生的基本原理及测量方法，并在此基础上对最近成功报道的产生单个阿秒脉冲的实验进行了详细介绍，指出了阿秒脉冲发展中需要解决的问题及今后的应用前景。     

Self-compression of attosecond high-order harmonic pulses

Self-compression of attosecond high-order harmonic pulses in the harmonic generation medium itself has been demonstrated. The attosecond pulses were generated in an argon-filled gas cell and compressed by exploiting the dispersion characteristics of argon. Since the harmonic generation medium itself was used as the compression medium, continuous chirp control was easily achieved by adjusting the gas pressure. The optimized attosecond pulse was also the most intense, and its duration of 206 as was very close to the transform-limited value of 200 as.     

Generation of attosecond pulses in molecular nitrogen

We investigate the carrier-envelope phase dependence of the total ionization yield for single and double ionization of xenon. We compare our results to theoretical calculations and to the phase dependent asymmetry in photoelectron emission. We observe that the phase dependence of the photoion yields, regardless if single or double ionization, is at least 2-3 orders of magnitude below the photoelectron emission signal. We conclude that total photoionization yields are only very weakly dependent on the carrier envelope phase, and that they are not a useful means for measurement of the phase. It seems possible that the broad bandwidth of few-cycle pulses facilitates multiphoton ionization, which leads to a randomization of strong field ionization phase dependencies. Besides, we observe that the spatial asymmetry in photoelectron emission appears to be useful as an indicator for the laser pulse duration in the few cycle regime.     

Nonlinear optics of intense attosecond light pulses

The interaction of an intense light pulse of "subatomic" duration with a system of multiple discrete quantum states is analyzed. The nonperturbative character of the response to the pulse field leading to an efficient conversion into high order harmonics is predicted. The spatial-temporal evolution of the field is shown to obey a generalized nonlinear wave equation of the double-sine-Gordon type. In addition to the solitary wave structures, it predicts a nontrivial regime of pulse amplification accompanied by extreme temporal self-contraction of the amplified field.     

Ionization of atoms by chirped attosecond pulses

We investigate the ionization dynamics of atoms by chirped attosecond pulses using the strong field approximation method. The pulse parameters are carefully chosen in the regime where the strong field approximation method is valid. We analyse the effects of the chirp of attosecond pulses on the energy distributions and the corresponding left-right asymmetry of the ionized electrons. For a single chirped attosecond pulse, the ionized electrons can be redistributed and the left-right asymmetry shows oscillations because of the introduction of the chirp. For time-delayed double attosecond pulses at different intensities with the weaker one chirped, exchanging the order of the two pulses shows a relative shift of the energy spectra, which can be explained by the different effective time delays of different frequency components because of the chirp.     

Single attosecond pulses from high harmonics driven by self-compressed filaments

We show that isolated subfemtosecond, extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses can be generated via harmonic generation in argon by few-cycle infrared pulses formed through filamentation-induced self-compression in neon. Our calculations show that the time structure of the XUV pulses depends sensitively on both the amplitude and the phase modulation that are induced in the driving pulse during the self-compression process.     

Resonant-absorption measurements of attosecond lifetimes

The lifetimes of the ²³Na levels at E_x = 7.89 and 4.43 MeV have been measured in resonant-absorption experiments as τ_m = 220 ± 17 and 350 ± 70 as, respectively. In both cases the γ-ray source was a ³⁰Si(p, γ)³¹P resonance. The implications of these results for the application of the resonant-absorption technique are discussed.     

Generation of attosecond pulses with ellipticity-modulated fundamental

We have studied experimentally and theoretically high-order harmonic generation using a laser field with a time-dependent ellipticity. We show that the harmonic emission can be confined into a narrow temporal window, in which the fundamental polarization is quasi-linear. This allows a single attosecond pulse (200 as) with a fundamental field obtained from 10 fs pulse to be generated. PACS 42.65.Ky; 42.65.Re; 32.80.Wr     

Efficient generation of highly elliptically polarized attosecond pulses

We theoretically demonstrate a scheme to efficiently generate attosecond pulses with high ellipticity by a counter-rotating bicircular field with frequency ratio of 1 : 3 (800 + 267 nm) and 1 : 4 (1600 + 400 nm). It is shown that efficient attosecond pulses with high ellipticity of 0.54 (800 + 267 nm) and 0.79 (1600 + 400nm) can be generated. We also investigate the scaling law of high harmonic generation yield. It is shown that the intensity of the high harmonics can be increased by more than one order of magnitude in the bicircular fields with higher frequency ratios. The high ellipticity and high efficiency of high harmonics are explained by analyzing the symmetry of driving field and the classical electron trajectories.     

Reshaping of attosecond x-ray pulses in thin crystals

A method for reshaping and control of the duration of attosecond x-ray pulses in thin crystals is proposed. The finite width of the reflection and transmission curves around the Bragg angle allows one to engineer Fabry-Perot-type filters for the generation of a large variety of attosecond pulse shapes. The method considered here can be used to manipulate attosecond pulses produced by high-harmonic generation and also for shorter wavelengths for attosecond pulses from x-ray free-electron lasers. X-ray pulses with controllable amplitude and phase may find useful applications in the newly emerging area of attosecond time-resolved spectroscopy.