Cascaded generation of isolated sub-10 attosecond half-cycle pulses. (7th May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shou, Yinren; Hu, Ronghao; Gong, Zheng; Yu, Jinqing; Chen, Jia erh; Mourou, Gerard; Yan, Xueqing; Ma, Wenjun
• Is Part Of: New journal of physics. Volume 23:Number 5(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-05-07
• Subjects: relativistically intense laser pulses -- near-critical density plasmas -- isolated attosecond pulses -- particle-in-cell simulations; Physics -- Periodicals; Physics; Periodicals; 530.05
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/abf612
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1367-2630

Abstract

Abstract: Sub-10 attosecond pulses (APs) with half-cycle electric fields provide exceptional options to detect and manipulate electrons in the atomic timescale. However, the availability of such pulses is still challenging. Here, we propose a method to generate isolated sub-10 attosecond half-cycle pulses based on a cascade process naturally happening in plasma. A backward AP is first generated by shooting a moderate overdense plasma with a one-cycle femtosecond pulse. After that, an electron sheet with the thickness of several nanometers is formed and accelerated forward by the electrostatic field. Then this electron sheet goes through unipolar perturbations driven by the tail of the first-stage AP instead of the initial laser pulse. As a result, a half-cycle sub-10 AP is cascadedly produced in the transmission direction. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations indicate that an isolated half-cycle pulse with the duration of 7.3 attoseconds can be generated from the cascaded scheme. Apart from a one-cycle driving pulse, such a scheme also can be realized with a commercial 100 TW 25 fs driving laser by shaping the pulse with a relativistic plasma lens in advance.