Abstract
Half-cycle picosecond pulses have been produced from thin photoconductors when applying an electric field across the surface and switching on conduction using a short laser pulse. The transverse current in the wafer plane then emits half-cycle pulses in a normal direction, and pulses of 500 fs duration and 1 × 106 V m−1 peak electric field have been observed. Here, we show that single half-cycle pulses with a duration of 50 as and up to 1 × 1013 V m−1 can be produced when irradiating a double foil target with intense few-cycle laser pulses. Focused onto an ultrathin foil, all electrons are blown out, forming a uniform sheet of relativistic electrons. A second layer, placed some distance behind, reflects the drive beam but lets electrons pass straight through. Under oblique incidence, beam reflection provides the transverse current, which emits intense half-cycle pulses. Such a pulse may completely ionize even heavier atoms. With these developments, new types of attosecond pump–probe experiments will become possible.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by LDRD Program 20110341ER at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. J.M.-t.-V. was supported by the Munich Center for Advanced Photonics and by the Association EURATOM-Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics. H.-C.W. acknowledges support from J. Fernandez and B.M. Hegelich.
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H.-C.W. discovered the new effect described in this Letter, carried out all simulations and developed the basic theory. J.M.-t.-V. wrote the paper and clarified some details of the physics. Both authors take full responsibility for the presented results.
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Wu, HC., Meyer-ter-Vehn, J. Giant half-cycle attosecond pulses. Nature Photon 6, 304–307 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.76
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.76
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