Shaped-pulse optimization of coherent emission of high-harmonic soft X-rays

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Abstract
When an intense laser pulse is focused into a gas, the light–atom interaction that occurs as atoms are ionized results in an extremely nonlinear optical process1,2,3—the generation of high harmonics of the driving laser frequency. Harmonics that extend up to orders of about 300 have been reported4,5, some corresponding to photon energies in excess of 500 eV. Because this technique is simple to implement and generates coherent, laser-like, soft X-ray beams, it is currently being developed for applications in science and technology; these include probing the dynamics in chemical and materials systems6 and imaging7. Here we report that by carefully tailoring the shape8 of intense light pulses, we can control9,10 the interaction of light with an atom during ionization, improving the efficiency of X-ray generation by an order of magnitude. We demonstrate that it is possible to tune the spectral characteristics of the emitted radiation, and to steer the interaction between different orders of nonlinear processes.
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