Philippe Balcou

A high-intensity highly coherent soft X-ray femtosecond laser seeded by a high harmonic beam

Synchrotrons have for decades provided invaluable sources of soft X-rays, the application of which has led to significant progress in many areas of science and technology. But future applications of soft X-rays—in structural biology, for example—anticipate the need for pulses with much shorter duration (femtoseconds) and much higher energy (millijoules) than those delivered by synchrotrons. Soft X-ray free-electron lasers should fulfil these requirements but will be limited in number; the pressure on beamtime is therefore likely to be considerable. Laser-driven soft X-ray sources offer a comparatively inexpensive and widely available alternative, but have encountered practical bottlenecks in the quest for high intensities. Here we establish and characterize a soft X-ray laser chain that shows how these bottlenecks can in principle be overcome. By combining the high optical quality available from high-harmonic laser sources (as a seed beam) with a highly energetic soft X-ray laser plasma amplifier, we produce a tabletop soft X-ray femtosecond laser operating at 10 Hz and exhibiting full saturation, high energy, high coherence and full polarization. This technique should be readily applicable on all existing laser-driven soft X-ray facilities.

Compression of attosecond harmonic pulses by extreme-ultraviolet chirped mirrors

In the race toward attosecond pulses, for which high-order harmonics generated in rare gases are the best candidates, both the harmonic spectral range and the spectral phase have to be controlled. We demonstrate that multilayer extreme-ultraviolet chirped mirrors can be numerically optimized and designed to compensate for the intrinsic harmonic chirp that was recently discovered and that is responsible for temporal broadening of pulses. A simulation shows that an optimized mirror is capable of compressing the duration from approximately 260 to 90 as. This new technique is an interesting solution because of its ability to cover a wider spectral range than other technical devices that have already been proposed to overcome the chirp of high harmonics.

Design and characterization of extreme-ultraviolet broadband mirrors for attosecond science.

A novel multilayer mirror was designed and fabricated based on a recently developed three-material technology aimed both at reaching reflectivities of about 20% and at controlling dispersion over a bandwidth covering photon energies between 35 and 50 eV. The spectral phase upon reflection was retrieved by measuring interferences in a two-color ionization process using high-order harmonics produced from a titanium: sapphire laser. We demonstrate the feasibility of designing and characterizing phase-controlled broadband optics in the extreme-ultraviolet domain, which should facilitate the manipulation of attosecond pulses for applications.

Enhancement of high-order harmonic generation at tuned wavelengths through adaptive control

An adaptive learning loop enhances the efficiency and tuning of high-order harmonic generation. In comparison with simple chirp tuning, we observe a broader tuning range and a twofold to threefold enhancement in integrated photon flux in the cutoff region. The driving pulse temporal phase varies significantly for different tunings and is more complicated than a simple chirp. We compare our experimental results with a one-dimensional, time-dependent model that incorporates the intrinsic atomic response, the experimental pulse temporal phase, ionization effects, and transverse coherence of the spatial mode of the laser. The model agrees with our experimental results and indicates that a specific quantum path coupled with ionization effects determines the optimized harmonic spectrum.

Quantum-path analysis and phase matching of high-order harmonic generation and high-order frequency mixing processes in strong laser fields

We study phase-matching conditions for high-order harmonic generation as well as high-order sum- and difference-frequency mixing processes in strong laser fields, using a graphical approach described in Balcou et al (1997 Phys. Rev. A 55 3204-10). This method is based on the analysis of the different quantum paths that contribute, with different phase properties, to the single-atom response. We propose a simple numerical method to disentangle the quantum paths contributing to the generation process. We present graphical maps of the phase matching around the laser focus, which allow one to predict the geometries that optimize the conversion efficiency of the process considered. The method is applied to the study of sum- and difference-frequency mixing processes. The qualitative predictions of the graphical phase-matching approach are confirmed by numerical propagation calculations.

Broadband attosecond pulse shaping

We present experiments on the control over spectral amplitude and phase of attosecond pulses, using metallic and semiconductor thin-film dispersive filters. A pulse duration as short as 130 as is obtained.

Proposal for a Raman X-ray free electron laser

Abstract. A scheme for an X-ray free electron laser is proposed, based on a Raman process occurring during the interaction between a moderately relativistic bunch of free electrons, and twin intense short pulse lasers interfering to form a transverse standing wave along the electron trajectories. In the high intensity regime of the Kapitza-Dirac effect, the laser ponderomotive potential forces the electrons into a lateral oscillatory motion, resulting in a Raman scattering process. I show how a parametric process is triggered, resulting in the amplification of the Stokes component of the Raman-scattered photons. Experimental operating parameters and implementations, based both on LINAC and Laser Wakefield Acceleration techniques, are discussed.

High-order Harmonics - A Coherent Source In the Xuv Range

We review the main results concerning high-order generation processes from the point of view of a potential user of this new source of XUV radiation. The perspectives for optimizing the source, both in efficiency and in spectral range, its characteristics and in particular, its coherence properties, are discussed. Finally, we describe two experiments, which demonstrate the usefulness of the harmonics as a short-pulse, coherent source in the XUV domain.

Picosecond pulses of variable duration from a high-power passively mode-locked Nd:YVO 4 laser free of spatial hole burning

We report on a high-power passively mode-locked TEM(00)Nd:YVO(4) oscillator, 888 nm diode-pumped, with pulse durations adjustable between 46 ps and 12 ps. The duration tunability was obtained by varying the output coupler (OC) transmission while avoiding resorting to spatial hole burning (SHB) for pulse shortening. At a repetition rate of 91 MHz and for an output power ranging from 15 Wto45 W, we produced SHB-free 12-ps-to32-ps-long pulses. Within this range of power, these are the shortest pulse durations obtained directly from Nd:YVO(4) oscillators.

Investigations of collisionally pumped optical field ionization soft-x-ray lasers

We report recent investigations of optical field ionization soft-x-ray lasers. We generated the amplifying medium by focusing a circularly polarized 760-mJ, 30-fs 10-Hz Ti:sapphire laser system into a gas cell a few millimeters long filled with xenon or krypton gas. A gain of 67 cm-1 on the 4d95p–4d95d transition at 41.8 nm in Pd-like xenon and a gain–length product of 15 have been inferred at saturation. This source delivers ∼5×109 photons per pulse. More recently we demonstrated lasing at 32.8 nm in Ni-like krypton. The influence of the pumping energy and the laser polarization on the lasing output as well as on the far-field pattern of the x-ray laser beam are reported and discussed.