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      Influence of generalized focusing of few-cycle Gaussian pulses in attosecond pulse generation

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          Abstract

          In contrast to the case of quasi-monochromatic waves, a focused optical pulse in the few-cycle limit may exhibit two independent curved wavefronts, associated with phase and group retardations, respectively. Focusing optical elements will generally affect these two wavefronts differently, thus leading to very different behavior of the pulse near focus. As limiting cases, we consider an ideal diffractive lens introducing only phase retardations and a perfect non-dispersive refractive lens (or a curved mirror) introducing equal phase and group retardations. We study the resulting diffraction effects on the pulse, finding both strong deformations of the pulse shape and shifts in the spectrum. We then show how important these effects can be in highly nonlinear optics, by studying their role in attosecond pulse generation. In particular, the focusing effects are found to affect substantially the generation of isolated attosecond pulses in gases from few-cycle fundamental optical fields.

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          Synthesized light transients.

          Manipulation of electron dynamics calls for electromagnetic forces that can be confined to and controlled over sub-femtosecond time intervals. Tailored transients of light fields can provide these forces. We report on the generation of subcycle field transients spanning the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet frequency regimes with a 1.5-octave three-channel optical field synthesizer and their attosecond sampling. To demonstrate applicability, we field-ionized krypton atoms within a single wave crest and launched a valence-shell electron wavepacket with a well-defined initial phase. Half-cycle field excitation and attosecond probing revealed fine details of atomic-scale electron motion, such as the instantaneous rate of tunneling, the initial charge distribution of a valence-shell wavepacket, the attosecond dynamic shift (instantaneous ac Stark shift) of its energy levels, and its few-femtosecond coherent oscillations.
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            Macroscopic generation of attosecond-pulse trains in strongly ionized media

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              Spectral Anomalies at Wave-Front Dislocations

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                30 May 2013
                Article
                10.1364/OE.21.024991
                1305.7274
                6e85c136-407f-4d02-9b00-73ba3ab0d0c2

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

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                8 pages and 6 figures
                physics.optics

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