Polarization control of high order harmonics in the EUV photon energy range

Boris Vodungbo (1) , Anna Barszczak Sardinha (1, 2) , Julien Gautier (1) , Guillaume Lambert (1) , Constance Valentin (1) , Magali Lozano (1) , Grégory Iaquaniello (1) , Franck Delmotte (3) , Stéphane Sebban (1) , Jan Lüning (4) , Philippe Zeitoun (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 Grupo de Lasers e Plasmas
3 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Scop
4 LCPMR - Laboratoire de Chimie Physique - Matière et Rayonnement

We report the generation of circularly polarized high order harmonics in the extreme ultraviolet range (18-27 nm) from a linearly polarized infrared laser (40 fs, 0.25 TW) focused into a neon filled gas cell. To circularly polarize the initially linearly polarized harmonics we have implemented a four-reflector phase-shifter. Fully circularly polarized radiation has been obtained with an efficiency of a few percents, thus being significantly more efficient than currently demonstrated direct generation of elliptically polarized harmonics. This demonstration opens up new experimental capabilities based on high order harmonics, for example, in biology and materials science. The inherent femtosecond time resolution of high order harmonic generating table top laser sources renders these an ideal tool for the investigation of ultrafast magnetization dynamics now that the magnetic circular dichroism at the absorption M-edges of transition metals can be exploited

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Boris Vodungbo, Anna Barszczak Sardinha, Julien Gautier, Guillaume Lambert, Constance Valentin, et al.. Polarization control of high order harmonics in the EUV photon energy range. Optics Express, 2011, 19 (5), pp.4346-4356. ⟨10.1364/OE.19.004346⟩. ⟨hal-00746804⟩