Optimal control of high-harmonic generation by intense few-cycle pulses

Abstract

At the core of attosecond science lies the ability to generate laser pulses of sub-femtosecond duration. In tabletop devices the process relies on high-harmonic generation, where a major challenge is to obtain high yields and high cutoff energies required for the generation of attosecond pulses. We develop a computational method that can simultaneously resolve these issues by optimizing the driving pulses using quantum optimal control theory. Our target functional, an integral over the harmonic yield over a desired energy range, leads to a remarkable cutoff extension and yield enhancement for a one-dimensional model H-atom. The physical enhancement process is shown to be twofold: the cutoff extension is of classical origin, whereas the yield enhancement arises from increased tunneling probability. The scheme is directly applicable to more realistic models and, within straightforward refinements, also to experimental verification.

References in corpus (8)

• Control of quantum phenomena: Past, present, and future
• Beyond Carbon K-edge harmonic emission using spatial and temporal synthesized laser field
• Control the high-order harmonics cutoff through the combination of chirped laser and static electric field
• Quantum mechanical approach to probing the birth of attosecond pulses using a two-color field
• Genetic optimization of attosecond pulse generation in light-field synthesizers
• Carrier-wave steepened pulses and gradient-gated high-order harmonic generation using linear ramp waveforms
• Amplification of High Harmonics Using Weak Perturbative High Frequency Radiation
• Optimal control theory of harmonic generation

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Demonstration of Optimal Control of Laser Induced Spin-Orbit Mediated Ultrafast Demagnetization
• Dispersion in time and space: what propagating optical pulses in time (& not space) forces us to confront
• Optimization of high-order harmonic generation by optimal control theory: Ascending a functional landscape in extreme conditions
• Influence of coherent vibronic excitation on the high harmonics generation of diatomic molecules
• On the control of Rydberg state population with realistic femtosecond laser pulses
• Reconstruction of a single-active-electron potential from electron momentum distribution produced by strong-field ionization using optimization technique
• Optimal control of photoelectron emission by realistic waveforms