Collinear generation of ultrashort UV and XUV pulses

Abstract

We demonstrate the collinear generation of few-femtosecond ultraviolet and attosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses via a combination of third-harmonic and high harmonic generation in noble gases. The ultrashort coherent light bursts are produced by focusing a sub-1.5-cycle nearinfrared/visible laser pulse in two subsequent quasi-static noble gas targets. This approach provides an inherently synchronized pair of UV and XUV pulses, where the UV radiation has a photon energy of ∼5 eV and a pulse energy of up to 1 μJ and the XUV radiation contains up to 3.5 • 10⁶ XUV photons per shot with a photon energy exceeding 100 eV. This source represents a novel tool for future UV pump/XUV probe experiments with unprecedented time-resolution. © 2010 Optical Society of America.