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Extreme ultraviolet radiation with coherence time greater than 1 s

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 530–536 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Many atomic and molecular systems of fundamental interest possess resonance frequencies in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) where laser technology is limited and radiation sources have traditionally lacked long-term phase coherence. Recent breakthroughs in XUV frequency comb technology have demonstrated spectroscopy with unprecedented resolution at the megahertz level, but even higher resolutions are desired for future applications in precision measurement. By characterizing heterodyne beats between two XUV comb sources, we demonstrate the capability for sub-hertz spectral resolution. This corresponds to coherence times >1 s at photon energies up to 20 eV, more than six orders of magnitude longer than previously reported. This work establishes the ability of creating highly phase-stable radiation in the XUV with performance rivalling that of visible light. Furthermore, by direct sampling of the phase of the XUV light originating from high-harmonic generation, we demonstrate precise measurements of attosecond strong-field physics.

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Figure 1: Schematic of experiment and harmonic spectra.
Figure 2: Linewidth scaling of comb teeth versus harmonic order.
Figure 3: Demonstration of sub-hertz coherence in the XUV.
Figure 4: Measurement of intensity-dependent dipole phase.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge technical contributions and collaboration from A. Ruehl, I. Hartl and M. E. Fermann. This work was supported by National Institute of Standards and Technology, Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center at JILA.

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Author notes

  1. Arman Cingöz & Dylan C. Yost

    Present address: Present addresses: AOSense, Sunnyvale, California 94085-2909, USA (A.C.); Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Strasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany (D.C.Y.),

Authors and Affiliations

  1. JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, Boulder, 80309-0440, Colorado, USA

    Craig Benko, Thomas K. Allison, Arman Cingöz, Linqiang Hua, François Labaye, Dylan C. Yost & Jun Ye

  2. Departments of Chemistry and Physics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, 11794-3400, New York, USA

    Thomas K. Allison

  3. State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Linqiang Hua

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Contributions

C.B., T.K.A., A.C., D.C.Y. and J.Y. contributed to the design and planning of the experiment. C.B., L.H. and F.L. acquired the data. C.B., T.K.A., L.H., F.L. and J.Y. analysed the data. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the writing of the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Craig Benko or Jun Ye.

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Benko, C., Allison, T., Cingöz, A. et al. Extreme ultraviolet radiation with coherence time greater than 1 s. Nature Photon 8, 530–536 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.132

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