Surface plasma attosource beamlines at ELI-ALPS

Abstract

© 2018 Optical Society of America. ELI-ALPS, one of the three pillars of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, will be in a unique position to offer dedicated experimental platforms for ultrashort time-resolved investigations of strongly excited dynamical systems. The state-of-the-art surface plasma attosource (SPA) beamlines at ELI-ALPS are being designed and developed to enable new directions in plasma-based attoscience research. The SPA beamlines will be driven by ultrashort, high peak power, high repetition rate lasers based on the latest technology and are aimed to develop previously unavailable attoscience experimental platforms employing surface high-harmonic generation process. This endeavor involves research and development challenges and careful considerations. Here we discuss the physics of plasma attosources and their characteristics under such extreme conditions and the beamline functionalities that would facilitate these objectives. Finally, we delineate the initial research possibilities with these sophisticated instruments.