Abstract

We propose to use the generation of even Brunel harmonics (BHs) by optical laser pulses for high-resolution gas-biased coherent detection of lower-frequency radiation in terahertz and mid-infrared ranges. BHs arise due to the acceleration of electrons liberated in the tunneling ionization process, and BHs pulses are much shorter than the laser ones. The latter makes it possible to significantly increase the temporal resolution of sampling detection compared to the use of cubic response of bound electrons generating the second harmonic of the gating pulse. However, as we show by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the helium atom, for an intense linearly polarized laser pulse, the atomic response contains a broadband noise signal that interferes with BHs and allows the detection of very high electric fields only. We show that the nature of this noise is related to the population of the Rydberg states of the atom, which can be effectively suppressed by using elliptical polarization of the gating pulse.

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