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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Attosecond pulse formation via switching of resonant interaction by tunnel ionization

T. R. Akhmedzhanov, V. A. Antonov, Yevgeny V. Radeonychev, Olga A. Kocharovskaya

Published Sep 22, 2015• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate a new method to produce attosecond pulses from a resonant XUV radiation in an atomic gas which is simultaneously irradiated by an IR laser field. Around the crests of an IR field all the excited atomic energy levels are strongly broadened due to rapid tunnel ionization from the corresponding excited states and atoms are not able to resonantly absorb the incident vacuum ultraviolet radiation. Vice versa, around zeroes of an IR field, ionization is slow and atoms effectively absorb the vacuum ultraviolet radiation. As a result, an interaction between atoms and XUV field is switched on and off resulting in formation of attosecond pulses.

DOI
10.1117/12.2188253

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Physical Review A•Sep 9, 2013•56 citations
We investigate a new method to produce attosecond pulses from a resonant XUV radiation in an atomic gas which is simultaneously irradiated by an IR laser field. Around the crests of an IR field all the excited atomic energy levels are strongly broadened due to rapid tunnel ionization from the corresponding excited states and atoms are not able to resonantly absorb the incident vacuum ultraviolet radiation. Vice versa, around zeroes of an IR field, ionization is slow and atoms effectively absorb the vacuum ultraviolet radiation. As a result, an interaction between atoms and XUV field is switched on and off resulting in formation of attosecond pulses.
We derive an analytical solution uncovering the origin of few-cycle attosecond pulse formation from vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) radiation in an atomic gas simultaneously irradiated by a moderately strong infrared (IR) laser field, which does not perturb atoms in the ground state, but induces rapid quasistatic ionization from the excited states [Polovinkin et al., Opt. Lett. 36, 2296 (2011)]. The derived solution shows that the pulses are produced due to periodic switching of the resonant interaction between the incident VUV radiation and the atoms: turning it off near the crests of the IR-field strength and switching it back on near the IR-field zero crossings. We extend the method originally proposed by Polovinkin et al. [Opt. Lett. 36, 2296 (2011)] to non-hydrogen-like media and show that the pulses can be produced from resonant VUV radiation in a variety of atomic gases. The pulses are nearly bandwidth limited without external adjustment of phases of the generated sidebands. Proximity of the carrier frequency of the produced pulses to intra-atomic resonances may allow their efficient utilization for nondestructive steering of ultrafast dynamics of the bound electrons. The experimental possibilities for attosecond pulse formation from 58.4 nm VUV radiation in helium and from 73.6 nm VUV radiation in neon dressed by the 3.9 \ensuremath{\mu}m laser field, as well as from 122 nm VUV radiation in atomic hydrogen dressed by CO2\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}CO2​-laser field are discussed.
We perform an ab initio study of the ultimate capabilities and limits of applicability of the method for few-cycle pulse formation via the resonant interaction of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation with atoms dressed by a moderately strong infrared (IR) laser field proposed in two earlier works [Y. V. Radeonychev et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 183902 (2010) and V. A. Polovinkin et al., Opt. Lett. 36, 2296 (2011)]. Taking into account all the multiphoton processes in the systems under consideration on the basis of numerical solution of the three-dimensional time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation (TDSE) in the single-active-electron approximation, we show the possibilities to produce 1.1-fs pulses from 124.6-nm XUV radiation via the linear Stark effect in atomic hydrogen, as well as 500-as pulses from 58.4-nm XUV radiation via excited-state ionization in helium. We derive a generalized analytical solution, which takes into account the interplay between sub-laser-cycle Stark effect and excited-state ionization and allows us to analyze the results of TDSE calculations. We found that the ultimate intensity of the IR field suitable for few-cycle pulse formation via the linear Stark effect or excited-state ionization is limited by the threshold for atomic ionization from the resonant excited state or the ground state, respectively. We show that the pulses with shorter duration can be produced in the medium of ions with higher values of the ionization potential.
We show the possibility of producing a short bunch of nearly bandwidth-limited few-cycle attosecond pulses based on time-dependent resonant interaction of an incident radiation pulse with the bound states of hydrogen-like atoms. Time-dependence of an atomic resonance is provided by a laser pulse far from resonance with an intensity well below the atomic ionization threshold via time-dependent tunnel ionization from the excited states and time-dependent adiabatic Stark splitting of the excited energy levels. Without external matching of the spectral components it is possible to produce pulses with durations up to 80 as at the carrier wavelength of 13.5 nm in Li 2+ -plasma, as well as pulses with durations up to 600 as at the carrier wavelength of 122 nm in atomic hydrogen.
We suggest a highly efficient method of ultrashort pulse formation from resonant XUV radiation due to sub-laser-cycle modulation of the excited state of non-hydrogen-like atoms by a nonionizing IR laser field. This modulation results in formation of the Raman-Stokes and anti-Stokes sidebands in coherently forward-scattered radiation, which, in turn, leads to formation of short pulses, when the phases of the sidebands are matched. This method is a generalization of a recently suggested technique [V. A. Antonov et al., Phys. Rev. A 88, 053849 (2013)] for a non-hydrogen-like medium. The possibility to form 2-fs XUV pulses in the gas of helium atoms and 990-as XUV pulses in the plasma of Li+ ions with efficiencies over 80% is shown.
We calculate resonant absorption line shapes in helium atoms subject to the combination of an attosecond pulse of XUV radiation and a delayed, few-cycle infrared (IR) laser pulse. We are in particular interested in how the resonant features evolve with the delay between the fields and with increasing IR intensity. We first compare the single-atom absorption calculated by a nonperturbative solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation (TDSE) to a simple model in which the resonant absorption is modified only by a laser-imposed phase (LIP) that originates in the instantaneous ac Stark shift of the resonant state. We find that the LIP model can explain many features of the resonant absorption, including the direction of the resonance energy shift and the onset of dispersive line shapes with increasing IR intensity. We also find, however, that the LIP model predicts the energy shifts and the line shapes only qualitatively when the resonant states are strongly IR coupled to nearby states. We then use a coupled solution of the Maxwell wave equation and the TDSE to examine how the line shapes are modified by propagation effects at helium densities such that the resonant absorption is strong. We find that when the resonant absorption saturates, their line shapes are strongly modified due to reshaping of the attosecond pulse time profile during propagation. This in turn alters the ultrafast absorption and emission dynamics.