Low-order harmonic generation of hydrogen molecular ion in laser field studied by the two-state model

The low-order harmonic generation of hydrogen molecular ion interacting with a linearly polarized laser field has been investigated theoretically by using a simple two-state model. The validity of the two-state model is carefully examined by comparing the harmonic spectra of hydrogen molecular ion obtained from this model with those from the three-dimensional time-dependent Schr¨odinger equation. When combined with the Morlet transform of quantum time-frequency spectrum,the two-state model can be used to study the dynamical origin of the low-order harmonic generation of hydrogen molecular ion driven by low-frequency pulses. In addition, some interesting structures of the time profiles for low order harmonics are obtained.

High-order harmonic generations in tilted Weyl semimetals

We investigate high-order harmonic generations(HHGs)under comparison of Weyl cones in two types.Due to the hyperboloidal electron pocket structure,strong noncentrosymmetrical generations in high orders are observed around a single type-ⅡWeyl point,especially at zero frequency.Such a remarkable DC signal is proved to have attributions from the intraband transition after spectral decomposition.Under weak pulse electric field,the linear optical response of a nontilted Weyl cone is consistent with the Kubo theory.With extensive numerical simulations,we conclude that the non-zero chemical potential can enhance the even-order generations,from the slightly tilted system to the over-tilted systems.In consideration of dynamical symmetries,type-Ⅰand type-ⅡWeyl cones also show different selective responses under the circularly polarized light.Finally,using a more realistic model containing two pairs of Weyl points,we demonstrate that paired Weyl points with opposite chirality can suppress the overall even-order generations.

High-order harmonic generation spectrum of an excited one-dimensional Coulomb atom in an intense laser field

Response of the wave packet of a one-dimensional Coulomb atom to an intense laser field is calculated using the symmetrized split operator fast Fourier method. The high-order harmonic generation （HHG） of the initial state separately being the ground and excited states is presented. When the hardness parameter a in the soft Coulomb potential V（x） =-1√x^2＋α is chosen to be small enough, the so-called hard Coulomb potential V（x）=1/｜x｜ can be obtained. It is well known that the hard one-dimensional Coulomb atom has an unstable ground state with an energy eigenvalue of - 0.5 and it has no states corresponding to physical states in the true atoms, and has the first and second excited states being degenerate. The parity effects on the HHG can be seen from the first and second excited states of the hard one-dimensional Coulomb atom. The HHG spectra of the excited states from both the soft and hard Coulomb atom models are shown to have more complex structures and to be much stronger than the corresponding HHG spectrum of the ground state of the soft Coulomb model with a = 2 in the same laser field. Laser-induced non-resonant one-photon emission is also observed.

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.

Ordering effects of cholesterol on sphingomyelin monolayers investigated by high-resolution broadband sum-frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy

This report investigated the ordering of the alky chain of sphingomyelin （SMs） monolayers induced by cholesterol at the air/water interface using high-resolution broadband sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy （HR-BB-SFG-VS）. The SFG spectra of the three nature sphingomyelin/cholesterol mixture monolayers with two concentrations of the cholesterol at the air/water interface are performed under different polarization combination. A new resolved CH2 symmetric stretching （d＋, ~2834 cm-1） and the CH3 symmetric stretching （r＋, ~2874 cm-1） mode are applied to characterize the conformational order in the sphingomyelin/cholesterol mixture monolayers. It was found that the cholesterol make the sphingosine backbones more conformational order. During this process, the conformational order of the N-linked acyl chain remains unaltered. Moreover, the sphingosine backbones of SMs have much larger contributions to gauche defects of SMs than one in the N-linked acyl chain. These results presented here not only shed lights on understanding of the interactions of sphingomyelin molecules with cholesterol molecules at interface but also demonstrates the ability of HR-BB-SFG to probe such complicated molecular systems.

What are Exciting in Laser Science

Recent advances in selected areas of laser science are briefly reviewed. They include laser technology, coherent control of quantum systems by lasers, X ray generation by ultrashort high intensity laser pulses, and laser spectroscopic studies of surface catalysis in real environment.