Attosecond laser station

The attosecond laser station （ALS） at the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility （SECUF） is a sophisticated and user-friendly platform for the investigation of the electron dynamics in atoms, molecules, and condensed matter on timescales ranging from tens of femtoseconds to tens of attoseconds. Short and tunable coherent extreme-ultraviolet （XUV） light sources based on high-order harmonic generation in atomic gases are being developed to drive a variety of endstations for inspecting and controlling ultrafast electron dynamics in real time. The combination of such light sources and end-stations offers a route to investigate fundamental physical processes in atoms, molecules, and condensed matter. The ALS consists of four beamlines, each containing a light source designed specifically for application experiments that will be performed in its own end-station. The first beamline will produce broadband XUV light for attosecond photoelectron spectroscopy and attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. It is also capable of performing attosecond streaking to characterize isolated attosecond pulses and will allow studies on the electron dynamics in atoms, moleculars, and condensed matter. The second XUV beamline will produce narrowband femtoseeond XUV pulses for time-resolved and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, to study the electronic dynamics on the timescale of fundamental correlations and interactions in solids, especially in superconductors and topological insulators. The third beamline will produce broadband XUV pulses for attosecond coincidence spectroscopy in a cold-target recoil-ion momentum spectrometer, to study the ultrafast dynamics and reactions in atomic and molecular systems. The last beamline produces broadband attosecond XUV pulses designed for time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy, to study the ultrafast dynamics of plasmons in nanostructures and the surfaces of solid materials with high temporal and spatial resolutions simultaneously. The main object of the ALS is to provide domestic and international scientists with unique tools to study fundamental processes in physics, chemistry, biology, and material sciences with ultrafast temporal resolutions on the atomic scale.

Attosecond pulse trains driven by IR pulses spectrally broadened via supercontinuum generation in solid thin plates

We utilized a set of fused silica thin plates to broaden the spectrum of 1kHz,30 fs Ti:sapphire amplified laser pulses to an octave.Following the compression by chirped mirror pairs,the generated few-cycle pulses were focused onto an argon filled gas cell.We detected high order harmonics corresponding to a train of 209 as pulses,characterized by the reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transition(RABITT)technique.Compared with the conventional attosecond pulse trains,the broad harmonics in such pulse trains cover more energy range,so it is more efficient in studying some typical cases,such as resonances,with frequency resolved RABITT.As the solid thin plates can support high power supercontinuum generation,it is feasible to tailor the spectrum to have different central wavelength and spectral width,which will make the RABITT source work in different applications.