Effects of macroscopic propagation on spectra of broadband supercontinuum harmonics and isolated-attosecond-pulse generation: Coherent control of the electron quantum trajectories in two-color laser fields

Abstract

Recently it was shown that broadband supercontinuum harmonics can be produced from the long-trajectory electrons in the single-atom response by the coherent control of the electron trajectories through optimized two-color laser fields. Such supercontinuum harmonics can be superposed to generate an isolated sub-30-attosecond (as) pulse. In this paper, we investigate the effect of macroscopic propagation on the supercontinuum harmonic spectra and the subsequent attosecond-pulse generation of atomic hydrogen. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation is solved accurately and efficiently by means of the time-dependent generalized pseudospectral method. The effects of macroscopic propagation are investigated in near and far field by solving Maxwell's equation. The results show that the contribution of short-trajectory electron emission is increased when the macroscopic propagation is considered. However, the characteristics of the dominant long-trajectory electron emission (in the single-atom response case) are not changed, and an isolated 53 as pulse can be generated in the near field. Moreover, in the far field, the contribution of long-trajectory electron emission is still dominant for both on-axis and off-axis cases. As a result, an isolated 42 as pulse can be generated directly. Similar results are obtained when the atomic target position is changed. Therefore, the proposed method for the single ultrashort attosecond-pulse generation can be realized by means of the coherent control of the electron quantum paths in appropriately optimized two-color laser fields. © 2012 American Physical Society.