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Progress on table-top isolated attosecond light sources

Nature Photonics volume 16, pages 267–278 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Research on isolated attosecond pulses (IAPs) based on high-order harmonic generation changed substantially around 2010. Before then, the Ti:sapphire laser was the de facto standard as the driving light source, so the cutoff energy was limited to ~100 eV. After 2010, the mid-infrared optical parametric amplifier became the mainstream driving source. The shortest pulse width of an IAP has reached ~50 as, an intensity over a gigawatt has been achieved, and the photon energy has been extended to 500 eV. However, owing to the low flux of IAPs, the use of IAPs is still limited in terms of applications. Here we focus on the vigorous efforts in the past decade to extend the performance of IAPs.

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Fig. 1: Electron trajectories and attochirp.
Fig. 2: Dipole approximation limits.
Fig. 3: Generation and measurement of a 53-as IAP.
Fig. 4: Apparatus for IR–visible–UV field synthesis and the subcycle light transient.
Fig. 5: Terawatt-class optical waveform synthesizer, synthesized intensity and HHG spectra.
Fig. 6: Pump–probe measurements and snapshots of hole dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

I thank E. J. Takahashi for critical reading of the manuscript. I acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) through Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research no. 19H05628 and the Quantum Leap Flagship programme.

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  1. RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama, Japan

    Katsumi Midorikawa

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  1. Katsumi Midorikawa
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Correspondence to Katsumi Midorikawa.

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Midorikawa, K. Progress on table-top isolated attosecond light sources. Nat. Photon. 16, 267–278 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-00961-9

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