Abstract

The study of ultrafast phenomena in atoms, molecules and solid-state matter is nowadays accessing a new realm, thanks to the production of isolated attosecond pulses (IAPs) of XUV radiation by high-order harmonic generation (HHG) [1]. The classical route to the generation of continuous XUV spectra leading to IAPs exploits shaped few-cycle laser pulses, like in polarization gating [2] and two-color gating [3] techniques. In this work we will show that such techniques can be implemented with an ultrabroadband optical parametric amplifier operating in the mid-IR and generating multi-cycle pulses, thus avoiding the use of a few-cycle Ti:Sapphire laser source and, thanks to the favorable cutoff scaling law for mid-IR drivers [3], paving the way to the production of IAPs well above the 100-eV photon energy.

© 2011 Optical Society of America