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The generation of intense subcycle laser pulses during the propagation of two-color femtosecond pulses in a gas medium is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Four-wave mixing induced by the laser pulses in a gas medium generates multi-octave laser radiation from the ultraviolet to the infrared, which forms stable subcycle laser pulses after a certain propagation distance in a gas medium with group-velocity dispersion. The intense subcycle laser pulses would allow the coherent control of the waveforms of soft-x-rays generated via high-harmonic generation.
© 2015 Optical Society of America
1. Introduction
In the past decades, ultrashort laser systems have been developed in various spectral ranges and applied for unveiling ultrafast photo-physical and chemical processes in atoms and molecules. Nearly single-cycle and a few-cycle laser pulses have enabled the generation of isolated attosecond pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) region [1,2] which have been utilized for the observation of electron motions in real time [3–9]. Even shorter optical pulses, sub-cycle optical pulses, allow detailed investigation of atomic-scale electron motion. Various approaches have been reported for the generation of subcycle laser pulses [10–19]. Among them, the optical shynthesizer generates an intense subcycle optical pulse with an energy of 0.3 mJ [16]. The active path-length stabilization generates subcycle laser pulses with stable waveforms for probing electron dynamics such as the instantaneous ac Stark shift in detail [16].
A train of intense subcycle pulses have important applications. Such a train of subcycle pulses is generated by synthesizing energetic multi-color femtosecond pulses. It has been recently reported that an energetic isolated attosecond pulse with a pulse energy exceeding one microjoule was generated using two-color multicycle laser fields forming optical beats [20]. Such a high-energy EUV pulse is a promising light source for nonlinear spectroscopy in the EUV. The waveforms of the harmonics strongly depend on the wavelengths of the two-color driving laser fields [20–23] or the waveform of the synthesized electric field. It was reported that three-color multicycle laser pulses forming subcycle laser fields enhanced the intensities of harmonic emissions [24,25]. A waveform-controlled train of subcycle laser pulses with a high peak intensity is one of the desired light sources for the generation of energetic attosecond EUV pulses as well as the coherent control of high-harmonic generation (HHG) processes [20–27].
In this research, an approach to the generation of the intense train of subcycle optical pulses is reported. Two-color multicycle femtosecond laser fields are focused into a gas medium to generate multicolor laser fields composing an octave-spanning spectrum via degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM). During the subsequent propagation in a gas medium, the laser field synthesized by the multicolor laser fields drastically changes its shape, and forms a train of several intense subcycle optical pulses after a certain propagation distance (hereafter denoted as subcycle optical burst). Similar approach has been proposed by Harris et al. that employs group-velocity dispersion (GVD) for the synthesis of a train of pulses in a Raman-active gas with strongly driven molecular coherence by two-color nanosecond pulses [28]. In the present research, on the other hand, intense multicycle femtosecond pulses and nonresonant FWM are employed for the generation of the multi-color laser fields for the synthesis of subcycle laser pulses with a high peak intensity. The mutual coherence among the multicolor laser fields leads to a stable subcycle intensity profile without active feedback stabilization. The adjustment of the optical path length in the gas after the multicolor generation allows the control of the temporal intensity profile of the optical burst generated.
2. Theoretical description
2.1 Generation of intense subcycle optical pulses in a gas
By focusing two-color laser pulses (P1, P2) with angular frequencies of ωP1 and ωP2 into a low-density gas medium, multicolor laser pulses are generated in a spectral range from the ultraviolet to the infrared via the degenerate FWM [13,14,29–33]. The phase mismatch and the influence of the GVD are small when the interaction length L is sufficiently short compared to the coherence length as in the experimental conditions described below. The real amplitude AS1(t), angular frequency ωS1, and phase ϕS1 of the first Stokes field generated by the FWM, in this case, are expressed as (Ln2/c)ωS1AP12(t)AP2(t), ωP2 - 2Ω, and 2ϕP1 - ϕP2 + π/2, respectively, under the assumption of the negligible pump depletion [34–36]. The real amplitude AAS1(t), angular frequency ωAS1, and phase ϕAS1 of the first anti-Stokes field generated by the FWM are, on the other hand, expressed as (Ln2/c)ωAS1AP1(t)AP22(t), ωP2 + Ω, and -ϕP1 + 2ϕP2 + π/2, respectively. The term Ω stands for the angular-frequency difference of ωP2 – ωP1. The parameters n2, c, AP1(t), AP2(t), ϕP1, and ϕP2 are the nonlinear refractive index of the medium, the speed of light in vacuum, the slowly-varying envelopes and phases of the two-color laser fields P1 and P2, respectively. The generated first anti-Stokes field then interacts with the two input laser fields to produce higher-order anti-Stokes fields via the cascaded interactions [13,14,29–33,35,37–40]. The mth-order anti-Stokes field has an amplitude of , an angular frequency of ωASm = ωP2 + mΩ, and phase ϕASm of –mϕP1 + (m + 1)ϕP2 + mπ/2, respectively.
After the generation, each laser field with an angular frequency ωi propagates with its own group velocity and propagation constant ki = niωi/c, where ni is the refractive index of the medium through which the laser field propagate. Under the retarded frame of reference (η, z) with the retarded time η of t – z/υg and υg being the group velocity of P2 [41], the phase of each field (i) evolves with the propagation distance z as . For any value of z, there exists a certain η (hereafter denoted as ηP) at which P1 and P2 are in phase such that ϕP1(ηP, z) = ϕP2(ηP, z) and . Such a retarded time exits as long as the pulse durations of P1 and P2 are longer than the period of T = 2π/Ω. Besides, at a certain propagation distance, , the first anti-Stokes field is phase locked at ηP to the two laser fields P1 and P2 such that ΔϕAS1(ηP, zl) = ϕAS1(ηP, zl) - ϕP2(ηP, zl) = 2πl, where l is an integer (l = 1, 2, 3, …). For such a zl to be present, the refractive index must be frequency dependent or GVD needs to be induced among the multicolor laser fields. The normal GVD induced in the medium changes the relative phases among the multicolor laser fields to phase lock the laser fields at the above propagation distance zl. The phase difference between S1 and P2 is ΔϕS1(ηP, zl) = π/2 + (zl/c)(nS1ωS1 + nP2ωP2 – 2nP1ωP1) at zl and ηP, whereas that between the mth-order anti-Stokes field and P2 is ΔϕASm(ηP, zl) = mπ/2 + (zl/c)[nASmωASm – (m + 1)nP2ωP2 + mnP1ωP1], respectively. If the phase differences are close to integer multiples of 2π, a subcycle temporal intensity structure is formed at the phase-locking point ηP at the propagation distance zl by the octave-spanning multicolor laser fields. The temporal intensity structure of the laser field synthesized by the multicolor laser fields does not depend on the values of ϕP1 and ϕP2 except the phase locking point ηP. This is because the phase differences Δϕi(ηP, zl) and zl are independent of ϕP1 and ϕP2. In other words, there is mutual phase coherence among the multicolor laser fields.
The application of the above phase-locking scheme in the femtosecond regime allows one to generate an intense subcycle optical burst consisting of only several subcycle pulses. This indicates the generation of subcycle laser pulses with the several orders of magnitude higher intensity than those generated in the nanosecond regime [13,14,17]. In the femtosecond regime, nonresonant FWM can be employed for the generation of multicolor laser fields with an arbitrary frequency spacing [18,35,37,39,40,42–45]. This leads to a degree of freedom for the waveform control, which is useful for the coherent control of HHG [20–24,26,27]. The influence of the GVD needs to be carefully addressed in this regime since it tends to temporally separate the multicolor laser fields from each other, preventing the formation of a subcycle optical burst. Nevertheless, the above phase-locking scheme still works, provided that the pulse duration of each field forming the multicolor laser fields is longer than the period, T = 2π/. For instance, the three laser fields P1, P2, and AS1 phase lock to each other after the propagation distance in air of zl of 0.36 m (l = 1), 0.84 m (l = 2), and 1.32 m (l = 3) without being separated from each other [Figs. 1(a) and 1(b)]. Here, the wavelength of P2 and 2πΩ/c are assumed to be 800 nm and 4155 cm−1, respectively, giving the multicolor laser fields, S1, P1, AS1, and AS2, with wavelengths of 2387, 1198, 600, and 481 nm, respectively, and the relative spectral intensities shown in Fig. 1(a). Each multicolor laser field is assumed to have a pulse duration of 50-fs and the refractive index of air is calculated by referring to the parameters reported elsewhere [46]. Interestingly, and are calculated to be 9.81 x 2π and 2.04 x 2π at z3 of 1.32 m, respectively, indicating AS2 and S1 are also nearly phase locked to P1,P2, and AS1. A subcycle pulse is formed at the phase-locking point ηP as shown in Fig. 1(c). This is because of the second and/or higher-order dispersion in the refractive index of air with respect to frequency. Such subcycle pulses are not formed at z = 0 and at z = 1.50 m.
Fig. 1 (a) Simulated spectrum of the multicolor laser fields, (b) temporal intensity distribution of each multicolor laser field after the propagation distance of z = 1.31 m, and (c) intensity profile of the synthesized optical burst by the multicolor laser fields for ϕP1 - ϕP2 = 0 after the propagation distances z of 0, 1.31, and 1.50 m. The ordinate in (b,c) corresponds to the retarded time η (see text).
2.2 Probing variation in temporal intensity profile of optical burst
Second-harmonic-generation frequency-resolved optical gating (SHG FROG) [47] allows to probe the evolution of the relative phases among the multicolor laser fields and thus the intensity structure of the optical burst with respect to the propagation distance. SHG-FROG traces for the optical bursts in Fig. 1(c) consist of several discrete spectral components with modulations with respect to delay with the period, T = 2π/Ω. Some modulations result from the interference among several sum-frequency wave-mixing processes, and have the information of the relative phases of the multicolor laser fields. Change in the relative phases leads to the change in the shape of the FROG trace, which is not the case for the test pulse consisting of only two-color laser fields [48]. In Fig. 2, the frequency components at 400 nm and 480 nm contained in the SHG-FROG traces are simulated for the optical bursts in Fig. 1(c). The signal at 480 nm is generated by the sum-frequency generations, ωS1 + ωAS1, and ωP1 + ωP2, while the signal at 400 nm is generated by the sum-frequency generations, ωS1 + ωAS2, ωP1 + ωAS1, and ωP2 + ωP2. For the phase-locked subcycle optical burst (z = 1.31 m), the two modulation signals are in phase [Fig. 2(a)], while for z = 1.50 m they are out of phase with respect to each other [Fig. 2(b)]. These features are experimentally observable only when there is mutual coherence among the multicolor laser fields, and allow probing the relative-phase evolution during the propagation.
Fig. 2 Simulated SHG-FROG signals at 400 nm (broken blue line) and 480 nm (solid red line) for the propagation distance z of (a) 1.31 m and (b) 1.50 m, respectively.
3. Experimental
In the experiment, a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier (800 nm, 35 fs, 4 mJ, 1 kHz, Legend Elite-USP, Coherent Inc.) was combined with an optical parametric amplifier (OPA, OPerASolo, Coherent Inc.) to produce two-color femtosecond laser pulses emitting at 800 nm (P2) and 1198 nm (P1), respectively, similar to the previous works [32,33]. These two pulses had pulse durations of ca. 50 fs and slight frequency chirps according to the characterization with the FROG reported in [49]. As shown in Fig. 3, the two-color pulses were focused into air using an aluminum-coated concave mirror with a focal length of 500 mm for generating multicolor laser fields via the nonresonant, degenerate FWM. After being collimated with another concave mirror with the same focal length, the output beam was attenuated by reflecting on a fused-silica wedge. After being split into two beams with a two aluminum-coated mirrors one of which was mounted on a closed-loop piezoelectric actuator, which were acting as a beam splitter, they were sent to a translation stage for the adjustment of the optical path length (z) in air after the multicolor generation. The two beams were noncollinearly focused into a beta barium borate (BBO) crystal (5-μm-thick, ϕ = 90° and θ = 45°) to generate an SHG signal. By recording the spectrum of the SHG signal with a sensitivity-calibrated multi-channel spectrometer (Maya2000pro, Ocean Optics, Dunedin, FL, USA) while scanning the time delay of one of the two beams using the piezoelectric actuator, an SHG-FROG trace was obtained. All the mirrors except the dichroic mirror were metal-coated for preventing additional GVD induced during the propagation of the multicolor laser fields except that in air.
Fig. 3 Experimental setup and the spectrum of the multicolor laser fields generated by the FWM: CM, concave mirrors; WG, fused-silica wedge; PZT; piezoelectric actuator; PM, parabolic mirror; BBO, BBO crystal.
4. Results and discussion
The beam diameters of the two input beams at the focus were ca. 200 μm, by which the effective interaction length for the FWM (the confocal parameters) was estimated to be 60 mm. The length was shorter than the coherence length of 480 mm and 200 mm calculated for the FWM that generates AS1 at 600 nm and AS3 at 401 nm, respectively. The input pulse energies of P1 and P2 were 250 μJ and 160 μJ, respectively. No indication of filamentation [18,37,39,40,43,45,50–52], such as plasma column and change in the beam divergence, was observed in air. There was no detectable energy loss during the FWM process (less than the energy fluctuation of the input P1 and P2, <1%). The generated multicolor laser fields consisted of S1 (2387 nm), P1 (1198 nm), P2 (800 nm), AS1 (600 nm), AS2 (481 nm), and AS3 (401 nm). The spectra of the P2 and anti-Stokes fields are shown in Fig. 3, which were measured with the spectrometer. The laser field of S1 was not directly detected by the spectrometer but was indirectly evaluated from the data of the SHG-FROG trace as discussed below.
The SHG-FROG trace measured for the laser field synthesized by these six multicolor laser fields consisted of several discrete spectral signals at 800, 600, 481, 401, and 343 nm as shown in Fig. 4(a). A part of the FROG signal at 1194 nm, the second harmonic of S1, was out of the spectral range of the spectrometer. The FROG signal at 800 nm was generated by the sum-frequency mixing between S1 and P1, and formed a modulated signal with respect to delay with a period determined by the frequency difference between S1 and P1 (8 fs). This signal indicating the presence of S1 is clearly visible in the measured SHG-FROG trace [Fig. 4(a)]. When there is mutual phase coherence among the multicolor laser fields generated, the FROG signals at 400 nm and 480 nm are expected to be modulated as shown in Fig. 2. This feature was also clearly observed in the experiment as shown in Fig. 5. The phases of the two modulations at the propagation distance zl of 1.31 m were the same to each other, while the two modulations at zl = 1.50 m were out of phase to each other. These observations agree well with the theoretical pictures in Fig. 2, indicating that the temporal intensity profile of the synthesized laser pulse varied by the manner shown in Fig. 1(c).
Fig. 4 (a) Measured and (b) retrieved SHG-FROG traces, and (c) temporal and (d) spectral intensity (solid red area) and phase (solid blue line) of the optical burst retrieved from the FROG trace.
Fig. 5 Measured SHG-FROG signals at 400 nm (broken blue line) and 480 nm (solid red line) for the propagation distance in air z of (a) 1.31 m and (b) 1.50 m, respectively.
The SHG-FROG trace measured for the optical burst generated at the propagation length, zl of 1.31 m, [Fig. 4(a)] was analyzed for qualitatively retrieving the temporal intensity profile of the synthesized field. When a part of the SHG-FROG signal, the SHG signal of S1, was missing, the analysis failed to precisely retrieve the relative spectral intensities of the multicolor laser fields even when a simulated SHG-FROG trace for the pulse in Fig. 1(c) was utilized. However, it qualitatively reproduced the temporal intensity shapes of the simulated laser fields in Fig. 1(c). The experimental FROG trace in Fig. 4(a) was analyzed using the generalized projections algorithm [53] with a grid size of 2048, giving a FROG error (G error) of 0.53%. A laser field composed of four spectral components S1, P1, P2, and AS1 with random spectral intensities and phases was used as the initial guess for the retrieval.
The phases of the modulations of the FROG signals with respect to delay were well reproduced in the retrieved FROG trace in Fig. 4(b). This indicates that the relative phases among the multicolor laser fields were reliably retrieved to qualitatively reproduce the temporal intensity profile of the optical burst. The retrieved profile in Fig. 4(c) is an optical burst containing seven intense short optical pulses, which is similar to that in Fig. 1(c) (z = 1.31 m). Although the relative spectral intensities [Figs. 4(a) and 4(b)] and hence the pulse duration of each short pulse of 2 fs in Fig. 4(c) are not precisely evaluated in the phase retrieval, the actual duration would have not been so far from this value.
As discussed above, it has been observed that the relative phases among the multicolor laser fields varied with the propagation distance in air to form a subcycle temporal intensity profile at a certain propagation distance. The mutual coherence among the multicolor laser fields suggested by the results in Fig. 5 leads to the stability in the temporal intensity profile. This enables the control of the temporal intensity profile by the adjustment of the propagation length. The similar phase-locking scheme shown above has been utilized in the nanosecond regime with the use of several types of glass plates [17]. Although, use of several glass plates are difficult in the femtosecond regime, the similar idea, the use of a mixture of different types of gasses, may be employed for more flexible phase control among the multicolor laser fields than this research. By combining this scheme with a carrier-envelope-phase (CEP)-stable Ti:sapphire amplifier seeding an OPA generating CEP-stable two-color laser fields, a light source that produces CEP-stable intense subcycle optical bursts may be developed. Additionally, the reported approach might be combined with the setup for the HHG for attosecond pulse generation and the control of electron dynamics [20–24,26,27] after replacing air for the FWM by a gas cell. The use of a gas medium would allow the use of energetic femtosecond pulses [51,52,54] for the generation of a multimillijoule subcycle optical burst. In this case, self-phase modulation and cross-phase modulation may be induced simultaneously by the two-color laser fields, and alternate the relative phases among the multi-color laser fields. Although, notable self-phase modulation nor cross-phase modulation were observed under the experimental condition in this research, the nonlinear phase might need to be taken into account for synthesizing the multi-color laser fields to form a train of subcycle pulses with a higher peak intensity than this work.
5. Conclusion
In conclusion, an approach generating an intense subcycle optical burst consisting of subcycle optical pulses has been investigated. It relies on the degenerate, nonresonant FWM in a gas medium followed by the relative-phase control by the adjustment of the path length in a dispersive gas medium. This scheme allows the generation of an optical burst with a stable temporal intensity profile. Since all the procedures including the generation and the phase control of the multicolor laser fields are demonstrated in a gas, the scheme is expected to be scalable to millijoule pulse energies. This may pave a way toward energetic subcycle light sources for attosecond pulse generation and the control of electron dynamics.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant No. 23245017, and The Research Grant of Faculty of Engineering for Young Researchers in Kyushu University.
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