Table Top Ultraviolet to X-Ray High Harmonic Laser Developed

by Tommy on 8/06/2012

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6086/1287

Bright Coherent Ultrahigh Harmonics in the keV X-ray Regime from Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Lasers, Tenio Popmintchev, Ming-Chang Chen, Dimitar Popmintchev, Paul Arpin, Susannah Brown, Skirmantas Ališauskas, Giedrius Andriukaitis, Tadas Balčiunas, Oliver D. Mücke, Audrius Pugzlys, Andrius Baltuška, Bonggu Shim, Samuel E. Schrauth, Alexander Gaeta, Carlos Hernández-García, Luis Plaja, Andreas Becker, Agnieszka Jaron-Becker, Margaret M. Murnane and Henry C. Kapteyn, Science, 8 June 2012, Vol. 336 no. 6086 pp. 1287-1291.

High-harmonic generation (HHG) traditionally combines ~100 near-infrared laser photons to generate bright, phase-matched, extreme ultraviolet beams when the emission from many atoms adds constructively. Here, we show that by guiding a mid-infrared femtosecond laser in a high-pressure gas, ultrahigh harmonics can be generated, up to orders greater than 5000, that emerge as a bright supercontinuum that spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the ultraviolet to more than 1.6 kilo–electron volts, allowing, in principle, the generation of pulses as short as 2.5 attoseconds.

So long, free electron laser facility – we hardly even knew ya!

lifeform@charter.net

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