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Quasi-phase-matching and quantum-path control of high-harmonic generation using counterpropagating light

Nature Physics volume 3, pages 270–275 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

High-order harmonic upconversion of femtosecond lasers produces a unique source of short-wavelength light with femtosecond-to-attosecond pulse duration. However, because the involved nonlinear medium is a partially ionized gas, traditional approaches for phase-matching the conversion process are not applicable. This severely limits the flux from this source. Here, we demonstrate the first use of a train of counterpropagating light pulses to enhance high-harmonic emission. This all-optical quasi-phase-matching technique uses interfering beams to scramble the quantum phase of the generated short-wavelength light, to suppress emission from out-of-phase regions. Selective enhancement of more than 300 is observed at photon energies around 70 eV in argon gas. Finally, we show that by adjusting the intensity of the counterpropagating light, different electron quantum trajectories can be selectively enhanced, demonstrating attosecond-timescale coherent control of the radiating electron wavefunction.

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Figure 1: Experimental set-up for QPM of high-harmonic generation using counterpropagating pulses.
Figure 2: Probing the coherent build-up and coherence lengths with a single counterpropagating pulse.
Figure 3: The influence of the counterpropagating beam on the short and long quantum paths.
Figure 4: All-optical QPM of high-harmonic generation by counterpropagating pulses.
Figure 5: QPM of high-harmonic generation using either one, two or three counterpropagating pulses in a long (6 cm) hollow waveguide filled with 7 torr of argon.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge support for this work from the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. This research made use of NSF Engineering Research Centers Shared Facilities supported by award number EEC-0310717.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. JILA and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    Xiaoshi Zhang, Amy L. Lytle, Tenio Popmintchev, Xibin Zhou, Henry C. Kapteyn, Margaret M. Murnane & Oren Cohen

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Correspondence to Xiaoshi Zhang or Margaret M. Murnane.

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Zhang, X., Lytle, A., Popmintchev, T. et al. Quasi-phase-matching and quantum-path control of high-harmonic generation using counterpropagating light. Nature Phys 3, 270–275 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys541

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