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arXiv · 2206.12827

All-optical spatio-temporal metrology for isolated attosecond pulses

Abstract

Characterizing an isolated attosecond pulse (IAP) is essential for its potential applications. A complete characterization of an IAP ultimately requires the determination of its electric field in both time and space domains. However, previous methods, like the widely-used RABBITT and attosecond streaking, only measure the temporal profile of the attosecond pulse. Here we demonstrate an all-optical method for the measurement of the space-time properties of an IAP. By introducing a non-collinear perturbing pulse to the driving field, the process of IAP generation is modified both spatially and temporally, manifesting as a spatial and a frequency modulation in the harmonic spectrum. By using a FROG-like retrieval method, the spatio-spectral phases of the harmonic spectrum are faithfully extracted from the induced spatio-spectral modulations, which allows a thoroughgoing characterization of the IAP in both time and space. With this method, the spatio-temporal structures of the IAP generated in a two-color driving field in both the near- and far-field are fully reconstructed, from which a weak spatio-temporal coupling in the IAP generation is revealed. Our approach overcomes the limitation in the temporal measurement in conventional in situ scheme, providing a reliable and holistic metrology for IAP characterization.

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Lixin He, Jianchang Hu, Siqi Sun, Yanqing He, Yu Deng, Pengfei Lan, Peixiang Lu. 2022-06-26. All-optical spatio-temporal metrology for isolated attosecond pulses. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6455%2Fac8f01

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