High-order harmonics measured by the photon statistics of the infrared driving-field exiting the atomic medium

N Tsatrafyllis; I K Kominis; I A Gonoskov; P Tzallas

doi:10.1038/ncomms15170

High-order harmonics measured by the photon statistics of the infrared driving-field exiting the atomic medium

Nat Commun. 2017 Apr 27:8:15170. doi: 10.1038/ncomms15170.

Authors

N Tsatrafyllis^{1

2}, I K Kominis^{2

3}, I A Gonoskov⁴, P Tzallas¹

Affiliations

¹ Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Institute of Electronic Structure &Laser, PO Box 1527, GR-71110 Heraklion, Greece.
² Department of Physics, University of Crete, 71103 Heraklion, Greece.
³ Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, University of Crete, 71103 Heraklion, Greece.
⁴ Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Weinberg 2, D-06120 Halle, Germany.

Abstract

High-order harmonics in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral range, resulting from the strong-field laser-atom interaction, have been used in a broad range of fascinating applications in all states of matter. In the majority of these studies the harmonic generation process is described using semi-classical theories which treat the electromagnetic field of the driving laser pulse classically without taking into account its quantum nature. In addition, for the measurement of the generated harmonics, all the experiments require diagnostics in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral region. Here by treating the driving laser field quantum mechanically we reveal the quantum-optical nature of the high-order harmonic generation process by measuring the photon number distribution of the infrared light exiting the harmonic generation medium. It is found that the high-order harmonics are imprinted in the photon number distribution of the infrared light and can be recorded without the need of a spectrometer in the extreme-ultraviolet.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't