Hungarians and Wigner RCP reaserchers are participating in the developing of "Next Generation Driver for Attosecond and Laser-plasma Physics". The team is led by László Veisz in the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics in München with the participation of the director, Ferenc Krausz. Among the co-researchers are Tibor Wittman who gained his PhD in Hungary, but now works abroad, and István Földes from MTA Wigner RCP.
" The observation and manipulation of electron dynamics in matter call for attosecond light pulses, routinely available from high-order harmonic generation driven by few-femtosecond lasers. However, the energy limitation of these lasers supports only weak sources and correspondingly linear attosecond studies. Here we report on an optical parametric synthesizer designed for nonlinear attosecond optics and relativistic laser-plasma physics. This synthesizer uniquely combines ultra-relativistic focused intensities of about 1020 W/cm2 with a pulse duration of sub-two carrier-wave cycles. The coherent combination of two sequentially amplified and complementary spectral ranges yields sub-5-fs pulses with multi-TW peak power. The application of this source allows the generation of a broad spectral continuum at 100-eV photon energy in gases as well as high-order harmonics in relativistic plasmas. Unprecedented spatio-temporal confinement of light now permits the investigation of electric-field-driven electron phenomena in the relativistic regime and ultimately the rise of next-generation intense isolated attosecond sources."
Read the article "Next Generation Driver for Attosecond and Laser-plasma Physics" here.
Author: Veronika Werovszky
