Spectral shaping of attosecond pulses using two-colour laser fields

Abstract

We use a strong two-colour laser field composed of the fundamental (800 nm) and the second harmonic (400 nm) of an infrared (IR) laser field to generate attosecond pulses with controlled spectral and temporal properties. With a second-harmonic intensity equal to 15% of the IR intensity the second-harmonic field is strong enough to significantly alter and control the electron trajectories in the generation process. This enables us to tune the central photon energy of the attosecond pulses by changing the phase difference between the IR and the second-harmonic fields. In the time domain the radiation is emitted as a sequence of pulses separated by a full IR cycle. We also perform calculations showing that the effect of even stronger second-harmonic fields leads to an extended tunable range under conditions that are experimentally feasible. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.