No Arabic abstract
A promising alternative to Gaussian beams for use in strong field science is Bessel-Gauss (BG or Bessel-like) laser beams as they are easily produced with readily available optics and provide more flexibility of the spot size and working distances. Here we use BG beams produced with a lens-axicon optical system for higher order harmonic generation (HHG) in a thin gas jet. The finite size of the interaction region allows for scans of the HHG yield along the propagation axis. Further, by measuring the ionization yield in unison with the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) we are able to distinguish regions of maximum ionization from regions of optimum XUV generation. This distinction is of great importance for BG fields as the generation of BG beams with axicons often leads to oscillations of the on-axis intensity, which can be exploited for extended phase matching conditions. We observed such oscillations in the ionization and XUV flux along the propagation axis for the first time. As it is the case for Gaussian modes, the harmonic yield is not maximum at the point of highest ionization. Finally, despite Bessel beams having a hole in the center in the far field, the XUV beam is well collimated making BG modes a great alternative when spatial filtering of the fundamental is desired.
We have investigated the generation of highly pure higher-order Laguerre-Gauss (LG) beams at high laser power of order 100W, the same regime that will be used by 2nd generation gravitational wave interferometers such as Advanced LIGO. We report on the generation of a helical type LG33 mode with a purity of order 97% at a power of 83W, the highest power ever reported in literature for a higher-order LG mode.
Parametric amplification of attosecond coherent pulses around 100 eV at the single-atom level is demonstrated for the first time by using the 3D time-dependent Schr{o}dinger equation in high-harmonic generation processes from excited states of He$^+$. We present the attosecond dynamics of the amplification process far from the ionization threshold and resolve the physics behind it. The amplification of a particular central photon energy requires the seed XUV pulses to be perfectly synchronized in time with the driving laser field for stimulated recombination to the He$^+$ ground state and is only produced in a few specific laser cycles in agreement with the experimental measurements. Our simulations show that the amplified photon energy region can be controlled by varying the peak intensity of the laser field. Our results pave the way to the realization of compact attosecond pulse intense XUV lasers with broad applications.
State-of-the-art experiments employ strong ultrafast optical fields to study the nonlinear response of electrons in solids on an attosecond time-scale. Notably, a recent experiment retrieved a 3rd order nonlinear susceptibility by comparing the nonlinear response induced by a strong laser field to a linear response induced by the otherwise identical weak field. In parallel, experiments have demonstrated high harmonic generation (HHG) in solids, a highly nonlinear process that until recently had only been observed in gases. The highly nonlinear nature of HHG has the potential to extract even higher order nonlinear susceptibility terms, and thereby characterize the entire response of the electronic system to strong field excitation. However, up till now, such characterization has been elusive due to a lack of direct correspondence between high harmonics and nonlinear susceptibilities. Here, we demonstrate a regime where such correspondence can be clearly made, extracting nonlinear susceptibilities (7th, 9th, and 11th) from sapphire of the same order as the measured high harmonics. The extracted high order susceptibilities show angular-resolved periodicities arising from variation in the band structure with crystal orientation. Nonlinear susceptibilities are key to ultrafast lightwave driven optoelectronics, allowing petahertz scaling manipulation of the signal. Our results open a door to multi-channel signal processing, controlled by laser polarization.
We report a novel experimental scheme for single-pass second harmonic generation (SHG) of vector vortex beam in the blue. Using an ultrafast Ti:Sapphire laser of pulse width ~17 fs and a set of spiral phase plates in polarization based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) we have generated vector vortex beams of order as high as lp = 12 at an average power of 860 mW. Given the space-variant polarization of the vector vortex beam, and the dependence of nonlinear frequency conversion processes on the polarization of the interacting beams, using two contiguous bismuth borate crystals with optic axis orthogonal to each other, we have frequency-doubled the near-IR vector vortex beam into visible vector vortex beams with order as high as lsh=24. The maximum output power of the vector vortex beam of order, lsh =2 is measured be as high as 20.5 mW at a single-pass SHG efficiency of 2.4 %. Controlling the temporal delay in the MZI, we have preserved the vector vortex nature of the beams at both pump and frequency-doubled beams at ultrafast timescales. The measurement on mode purity confirms the generation of high quality vector vortex beams at pump and SHG wavelengths. The generic experimental scheme can be used to generate vector vortex beams across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Discrete-Gauss states are a new class of gaussian solutions of the free Schrodinger equation owning discrete rotational symmetry. They are obtained by acting with a discrete deformation operator onto Laguerre-Gauss modes. We present a general analytical construction of these states and show the necessary and sufficient condition for them to host embedded dark beams structures. We unveil the intimate connection between discrete rotational symmetry, orbital angular momentum, and the generation of focussing dark beams. The distinguishing features of focussing dark beams are discussed. The potential applications of Discrete-Gauss states in advanced optical trapping and quantum information processing are also briefly discussed.