Letter abstract
Nature Physics 5, 124 - 128 (2009)
Published online: 14 December 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphys1155
Subject Categories: Optical physics | Plasma physics
Attosecond phase locking of harmonics emitted from laser-produced plasmas
Y. Nomura1,7, R. Hörlein1,2,7, P. Tzallas3, B. Dromey4, S. Rykovanov1,5, Zs. Major1, J. Osterhoff1, S. Karsch1, L. Veisz1, M. Zepf4, D. Charalambidis3,6, F. Krausz1,2 & G. D. Tsakiris1
Laser-driven coherent extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) sources provide pulses lasting a few hundred attoseconds1, 2, enabling real-time access to dynamic changes of the electronic structure of matter3, 4, the fastest processes outside the atomic nucleus. These pulses, however, are typically rather weak. Exploiting the ultrahigh brilliance of accelerator-based XUV sources5 and the unique time structure of their laser-based counterparts would open intriguing opportunities in ultrafast X-ray and high-field science, extending powerful nonlinear optical and pump–probe techniques towards X-ray frequencies, and paving the way towards unequalled radiation intensities. Relativistic laser–plasma interactions have been identified as a promising approach to achieve this goal6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Recent experiments confirmed that relativistically driven overdense plasmas are able to convert infrared laser light into harmonic XUV radiation with unparalleled efficiency, and demonstrated the scalability of the generation technique towards hard X-rays14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Here we show that the phases of the XUV harmonics emanating from the interaction processes are synchronized, and therefore enable attosecond temporal bunching. Along with the previous findings concerning energy conversion and recent advances in high-power laser technology, our experiment demonstrates the feasibility of confining unprecedented amounts of light energy to within less than one femtosecond.
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Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Stra
e 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Department für Physik, Ludwig- Maximilians-Universität, Am Coulombwall 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser, PO Box 1527, GR-711 10 Heraklion (Crete), Greece
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Queens University Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK
- Moscow Physics Engineering Institute, Kashirskoe shosse 31, 115409 Moscow, Russia
- Department of Physics, University of Crete, PO Box 2208, GR-71003 Voutes-Heraklion (Crete), Greece
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: G. D. Tsakiris1 e-mail: george.tsakiris@mpq.mpg.de
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