Publication Date:
2012-06-09
Description:
High-harmonic generation (HHG) traditionally combines ~100 near-infrared laser photons to generate bright, phase-matched, extreme ultraviolet beams when the emission from many atoms adds constructively. Here, we show that by guiding a mid-infrared femtosecond laser in a high-pressure gas, ultrahigh harmonics can be generated, up to orders greater than 5000, that emerge as a bright supercontinuum that spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the ultraviolet to more than 1.6 kilo-electron volts, allowing, in principle, the generation of pulses as short as 2.5 attoseconds. The multiatmosphere gas pressures required for bright, phase-matched emission also support laser beam self-confinement, further enhancing the x-ray yield. Finally, the x-ray beam exhibits high spatial coherence, even though at high gas density the recolliding electrons responsible for HHG encounter other atoms during the emission process.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Popmintchev, Tenio -- Chen, Ming-Chang -- Popmintchev, Dimitar -- Arpin, Paul -- Brown, Susannah -- Alisauskas, Skirmantas -- Andriukaitis, Giedrius -- Balciunas, Tadas -- Mucke, Oliver D -- Pugzlys, Audrius -- Baltuska, Andrius -- Shim, Bonggu -- Schrauth, Samuel E -- Gaeta, Alexander -- Hernandez-Garcia, Carlos -- Plaja, Luis -- Becker, Andreas -- Jaron-Becker, Agnieszka -- Murnane, Margaret M -- Kapteyn, Henry C -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Jun 8;336(6086):1287-91. doi: 10.1126/science.1218497.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉JILA, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. popmintchev@jila.colorado.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22679093" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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