XUV lasing during strong-field assisted transient absorption in molecules

Abstract

Using ab-initio non-Born-Oppenheimer simulations, we demonstrate amplification of XUV radiation in a high-harmonic generation type process using the example of the hydrogen molecular ion. A small fraction of the molecules is pumped to a dissociative Rydberg state from which IR-assisted XUV amplification is observed. We show that starting at sufficiently high IR driving field intensities the ground state molecules become quasi-transparent for XUV radiation, while due to stabilization gain from Rydberg states is maintained, thus leading to lasing from strongly driven Rydberg states. Further increase of the IR intensity even leads to gain by initially unexcited molecules, which are quickly excited by the driving IR pulse.

References in corpus (3)

• Bright Coherent Ultrahigh Harmonics in the keV X-Ray Regime from Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Lasers
• Phase-Matched Generation of Coherent Soft-X-Rays
• Virtual single-photon transition interrupted: time-gated optical gain and loss

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Amplification of intense light fields by nearly free electrons
• Time-resolved high harmonic spectroscopy of dynamical symmetry breaking in bi-circular laser fields
• Intrapulse Impact Processes in Dense-Gas Femtosecond Laser Filamentation
• Nonlinear propagation effect in x-ray parametric amplification during high harmonic generation