High-order harmonics generation by few-cycle and multi-cycle femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

This paper investigates experimentally high-order harmonic generation (HHG) of neon gas with 5-fs and 25-fs driving laser pulses. It has been demonstrated that the cutoff energy of the harmonic extreme ultraviolet photons is extended to 131 eV and the HHG spectrum near the cutoff region becomes continuum as the driving laser pulse duration is 5 fs; whereas much lower cutoff photon energy and discrete harmonic spectrum near the cutoff region are presented as the laser pulse duration is 25 fs. The results can be explained by the fact that neutral atoms can be exposed to more intense laser field before they are depleted by ionization because of the extremely short rising time of the few-cycle pulse. The 5-fs driving laser pulse paves the way of generation of coherent x-ray in the water window and single attosecond pulse.