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Title: High-Order Harmonic Generation from Ions in a Capillary Discharge

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
; ; ; ;  [1]; ; ; ;  [2];  [3]
  1. JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, 440 UCB, Boulder, Colorado, 80309-0440 (United States)
  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 (United States)
  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, 223 Sharp Laboratory, Newark, Delaware 19716 (United States)

We demonstrate a significant extension of the high-order harmonic cutoff by using a fully-ionized capillary discharge plasma as the generation medium. The preionized plasma dramatically reduces ionization-induced defocusing and energy loss of the driving laser due to ionization. This allows for significantly higher photon energies, up to 150 eV, to be generated from xenon ions, compared with the 70 eV observed previously. We also demonstrate enhancement of the harmonic flux of nearly 2 orders of magnitude at photon energies around 90 eV when the capillary discharge is used to ionize xenon, compared with harmonic generation in a hollow waveguide. The use of a plasma as a medium for high-order harmonic generation shows great promise for extending efficient harmonic generation to much shorter wavelengths using ions.

OSTI ID:
20777249
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 96, Issue 20; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.203001; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English