Isolated broadband attosecond pulse generation with near- and mid-infrared driver pulses via time-gated phase matching

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 25; no. 10; pp. 11855 - 11866
• Main Authors: Hernández-García, C, Popmintchev, T, Murnane, M M, Kapteyn, H C, Plaja, L, Becker, A, Jaron-Becker, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 15.05.2017
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.25.011855

We present a theoretical analysis of the time-gated phase matching (ionization gating) mechanism in high-order harmonic generation for the isolation of attosecond pulses at near-infrared and mid-infrared driver wavelengths, for both few-cycle and multi-cycle driving laser pulses. Results of our high harmonic generation and three-dimensional propagation simulations show that broadband isolated pulses spanning from the extreme-ultraviolet well into the soft X-ray region of the spectrum can be generated for both few-cycle and multi-cycle laser pulses. We demonstrate the key role of absorption and group velocity matching for generating bright, isolated, attosecond pulses using long wavelength multi-cycle pulses. Finally, we show that this technique is robust against carrier-envelope phase and peak intensity variations.