Abstract

For the generation of tunable coherent radiation in the XUV spectral range nonlinear optical techniques have to be considered, as broadly tunable laser systems for this spectral range do not exist. Starting from tunable visible radiation, very high order processes are needed, which has become possible due to recent progress in non perturbative high-order harmonic generation. These processes have been intensively studied using different pump lasers, recent experiments using a Ti: Sapphire laser are for example given in Ref. ¹. Although Ti: Sapphire lasers are broadly tunable, high peak power systems can practically not be tuned due to the complicated chirped pulse amplification scheme. A more flexible approach for the generation of tunable XUV therefore is to mix the radiation of a high power laser (ω_P) with a less powerful but easily tunable light source (ω_tunable), generating tunable photons at n·ω_P ± k·ω_tunable. A first high order mixing experiment of Nd:glass laser radiation with its second harmonic has been reported recently [2].

© 1994 Optical Society of America