Determination of the Carrier-Envelope Phase of Few-Cycle Laser Pulses with Terahertz-Emission Spectroscopy

Abstract

The availability of few-cycle optical pulses opens a window to physical phenomena occurring on the attosecond time scale. In order to take full advantage of such pulses, it is crucial to measure and stabilise their carrier-envelope (CE) phase, i.e., the phase difference between the carrier wave and the envelope function. We introduce a novel approach to determine the CE phase by down-conversion of the laser light to the terahertz (THz) frequency range via plasma generation in ambient air, an isotropic medium where optical rectification (down-conversion) in the forward direction is only possible if the inversion symmetry is broken by electrical or optical means. We show that few-cycle pulses directly produce a spatial charge asymmetry in the plasma. The asymmetry, associated with THz emission, depends on the CE phase, which allows for a determination of the phase by measurement of the amplitude and polarity of the THz pulse.

References in corpus (1)

• Relativistic Doppler effect: universal spectra and zeptosecond pulses

Cited by in corpus (29)

• Ultrafast spatio-temporal dynamics of terahertz generation by ionizing two-color femtosecond pulses in gases
• Tailoring THz radiation by controlling tunnel photoionization events in gases
• Determining the carrier-envelope phase of intense few-cycle laser pulses
• Boosting terahertz generation in laser-field ionized gases using a sawtooth wave shape
• Ticking terahertz wave generation in attoseconds
• Waveform-Controlled Terahertz Radiation from the Air Filament Produced by Few-Cycle Laser Pulses
• Optimisation of Quantum Trajectories Driven by Strong-field Waveforms
• CEP-stable Tunable THz-Emission Originating from Laser-Waveform-Controlled Sub-Cycle Plasma-Electron Bursts
• Generation of terahertz radiation from ionizing two-color laser pulses in Ar filled metallic hollow waveguides
• Theoretical study of terahertz generation from atoms and aligned molecules driven by two-color laser fields
• Water Vapor: An Extraordinary Terahertz Wave Source under Optical Excitation
• Fiber laser-driven gas plasma-based generation of THz radiation with 50-mW average power
• Determination of the carrier envelope phase for short, circularly polarized laser pulses
• Carrier-envelope phase measurement from half-cycle high harmonics
• Single-shot carrier-envelope-phase measurement in ambient air
• Coherently controlled generation of single-cycle terahertz pulses from thin layer of nonlinear medium with low-frequency resonances
• Single-shot carrier-envelope phase determination of long superintense laser pulses
• Prospects of odd and even harmonics generation by an atom in high-intensity laser field
• Determining the duration of an intense laser pulse directly in focus
• The emergence of macroscopic currents in photoconductive sampling of optical fields
• Determination of Carrier-Envelope Phase of Relativistic Few-Cycle Laser Pulses by Thomson Backscattering Spectroscopy
• Zitterbewegung of electrons in carbon nanotubes created by laser pulses
• Intensity-surged and Bandwidth-extended Terahertz Radiation in Two-foci Cascading Plasmas
• High-order parametric generation of coherent XUV radiation
• Measuring laser carrier-envelope phase effects in the noble gases with an atomic hydrogen calibration standard
• Initial carrier-envelope phase of few-cycle pulses determined by THz emission from air plasma
• Carrier-envelope phase dependence in single-cycle laser pulse propagation with the inclusion of counter-rotating terms
• Attosecond Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics
• Femtosecond streaking in ambient air