Jens Rauschenberger

Attosecond real-time observation of electron tunnelling in atoms

Atoms exposed to intense light lose one or more electrons and become ions. In strong fields, the process is predicted to occur via tunnelling through the binding potential that is suppressed by the light field near the peaks of its oscillations. Here we report the real-time observation of this most elementary step in strong-field interactions: light-induced electron tunnelling. The process is found to deplete atomic bound states in sharp steps lasting several hundred attoseconds. This suggests a new technique, attosecond tunnelling, for probing short-lived, transient states of atoms or molecules with high temporal resolution. The utility of attosecond tunnelling is demonstrated by capturing multi-electron excitation (shake-up) and relaxation (cascaded Auger decay) processes with subfemtosecond resolution.

A frequency comb in the extreme ultraviolet

Since 1998, the interaction of precision spectroscopy and ultrafast laser science has led to several notable accomplishments. Femtosecond laser optical frequency ‘combs’ (evenly spaced spectral lines) have revolutionized the measurement of optical frequencies and enabled optical atomic clocks. The same comb techniques have been used to control the waveform of ultrafast laser pulses, which permitted the generation of single attosecond pulses, and have been used in a recently demonstrated ‘oscilloscope’ for light waves. Here we demonstrate intra-cavity high harmonic generation in the extreme ultraviolet, which promises to lead to another joint frontier of precision spectroscopy and ultrafast science. We have generated coherent extreme ultraviolet radiation at a repetition frequency of more than 100 MHz, a 1,000-fold improvement over previous experiments. At such a repetition rate, the mode spacing of the frequency comb, which is expected to survive the high harmonic generation process, is large enough for high resolution spectroscopy. Additionally, there may be many other applications of such a quasi-continuous compact and coherent extreme ultraviolet source, including extreme ultraviolet holography, microscopy, nanolithography and X-ray atomic clocks.

Monolithic carrier-envelope phase-stabilization scheme

A new scheme for stabilizing the carrier-envelope (CE) phase of a few-cycle laser pulse train is demonstrated. Self-phase modulation and difference-frequency generation in a single periodically poled lithium niobate crystal that transmits the main laser beam allows CE phase locking directly in the usable output. The monolithic scheme obviates the need for splitting off a fraction of the laser output for CE phase control, coupling into microstructured fiber, and separation and recombination of spectral components. As a consequence, the output yields 6-fs, 800-nm pulses with an unprecedented degree of short- and long-term reproducibility of the electric field waveform.

Power scaling of a high-repetition-rate enhancement cavity

A passive optical resonator is used to enhance the power of a pulsed 78 MHz repetition rate Yb laser providing 200 fs pulses. We find limitations relating to the achievable time-averaged and peak power, which we distinguish by varying the duration of the input pulses. An intracavity average power of 18 kW is generated with close to Fourier-limited pulses of 10 W average power. Beyond this power level, intensity-related effects lead to resonator instabilities, which can be removed by chirping the seed laser pulses. By extending the pulse duration in this way to 2 ps, we could obtain 72 kW of intracavity circulating power with 50 W of input power.

Control of the frequency comb from a modelocked Erbium-doped fiber laser

We show that a stretched-pulse mode-locked fiber laser produces a welldefined frequency comb, providing a compact source of frequency combs and allowing comb-based optical frequency metrology to be extended into the 1.55 microm region. This is achieved by comparing the frequency doubled output of the fiber laser to that of a mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser, after the two lasers are synchronized. The offset frequency of the fiber laser frequency comb is found to be highly sensitive to the pump power, which enables the implementation of a feedback loop to control the offset frequency. The resulting RMS frequency jitter of the heterodyne beat signal is 355 kHz (0.5 Hz - 102 kHz BW) for this initial demonstration.

Attosecond control of optical waveforms

A new, monolithic scheme for stabilizing the phase between the carrier wave and the envelope (CE phase) in a train of few-cycle laser pulses is demonstrated. Self-phase modulation and second-harmonic generation or difference-frequency generation in a single periodically poled lithium niobate crystal, that transmits the main laser beam, allows for the CE-phase locking directly in the usable output. The monolithic scheme obviates the need for splitting off a fraction of the laser output for CE-phase control, coupling into microstructured fibre, as well as separation and recombination of spectral components. As a result, the CE-phase error integrated over the spectral range of 0.2 mHz–35 MHz is as small as 0.016 × 2π rad. This implies that the phase of the field oscillations (λ ~ 830 nm) with respect to the pulse peak is locked to within 44 attoseconds, resulting in optical waveform control with subhundred attosecond fidelity for the first time.

Imaging of carrier-envelope phase effects in above-threshold ionization with intense few-cycle laser fields

Sub-femtosecond control of the electron emission in above-threshold ionization of the rare gases Ar, Xe and Kr in intense few-cycle laser fields is reported with full angular resolution. Experimental data that were obtained with the velocity-map imaging technique are compared to simulations using the strong-field approximation (SFA) and full time-dependent Schrodinger equation (TDSE) calculations. We find a pronounced asymmetry in both the energy and angular distributions of the electron emission that critically depends on the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the laser field. The potential use of imaging techniques as a tool for single-shot detection of the CEP is discussed.

Simultaneous compression, characterization and phase stabilization of GW-level 1.4 cycle VIS-NIR femtosecond pulses using a single dispersion-scan setup.

We have temporally characterized, dispersion compensated and carrier-envelope phase stabilized 1.4-cycle pulses (3.2 fs) with 160 µJ of energy at 722 nm using a minimal and convenient dispersion-scan setup. The setup is all inline, does not require interferometric beamsplitting, and uses components available in most laser laboratories. Broadband minimization of third-order dispersion using propagation in water enabled reducing the compressed pulse duration from 3.8 to 3.2 fs with the same set of chirped mirrors. Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of the octave-spanning pulses was also performed by the dispersion-scan setup. This unprecedentedly simple and reliable approach provides reproducible CEP-stabilized pulses in the single-cycle regime for applications such as CEP-sensitive spectroscopy and isolated attosecond pulse generation.

Ultrabroadband efficient intracavity XUV output coupler

We report an efficient intracavity XUV output coupler based on an anti-reflection-coated grazing incidence plate (GIP). Conceptually, GIP is an extension of a Brewster plate, affording low loss of the circulating fundamental light and serving as a highly efficient, extremely broadband output coupler for XUV. Due to the grazing incidence geometry, the short wavelength reflectivity can be extended to the keV range. The first GIP realized shows parameters close to the design. We discuss both the limitations of the GIP in comparison with other XUV output couplers and the applicability of the GIP extension at longer wavelengths, down to the MIR.

Power scaling of femtosecond enhancement cavities and high-power applications

An Yb-based 78-MHz repetition rate fiber-amplified frequency comb is used to investigate the power scaling limitations of a standard-design bow tie high-finesse enhancement cavity for XUV generation. With a Xenon gas jet in the 22-μm-radius focus, the 200-fs intra-cavity circulating pulse reaches a maximum of 20 kW of time-averaged power. A novel cavity design is presented, conceived to overcome the observed enhancement limitations and offering the prospect of few-nm high-power high-harmonic generation. Several applications which come into reach for the first time are discussed.