Suppression of driving laser in high harmonic generation with a microchannel plate

Suppression of driving laser in high harmonic generation with a microchannel plate

Citation

Zhang, Q., Zhao, K., Li, J., Chini, M., Cheng, Y., Wu, Y., Cunningham, E., & Chang, Z. (2014). Suppression of driving laser in high harmonic generation with a microchannel plate. Optics Letters, 39(12), 3670–3673. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.39.003670 

Keywords

  • microchannel plate
  • high harmonic generation
  • attosecond pulse generation
  • extreme ultraviolet
  • infrared
  • laser
  • filter
  • transmission
  • diffraction
  • RABBITT

Brief

A microchannel plate (MCP) filter can effectively separate extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light from infrared (IR) driving lasers in high harmonic generation setups. 

Summary

A microchannel plate (MCP) can be used as an effective filter to separate high-order harmonic extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light from a driving laser, which is important in many experiments using this light. This is a simple technique that transmits photons across the entire XUV and x-ray spectrum and has a high damage threshold.

Several other methods exist for separating the XUV from the driving laser, but they have various limitations, such as only working within a narrow wavelength range. Experiments showed that an MCP with 8 μm diameter channels could effectively block driving lasers with wavelengths in the infrared, visible, and near-infrared while transmitting XUV light. The zeroth-order transmission of the MCP was measured to be about 25% for XUV photons between 30 and 120 eV. Further research should investigate using MCPs with a larger open-area ratio and smaller pore size to increase transmission.

Origin: https://www2.creol.ucf.edu/Research/Publications/8817.pdf

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