We investigate how the intensity and duration of an attosecond pulse generated from high-order harmonic generation are affected by the pressure and thickness of the gas jet by taking into account the macroscopic propagation of both fundamental and harmonic fields. Our simulations show that, limited by the propagation effects, especially the absorption of harmonics, the intensity of an attosecond pulse cannot be improved by just independently increasing the gas pressure or the medium length. On the other hand, due to good phase-matching conditions, the duration of a generated attosecond pulse can be improved by changing the gas pressure.
We perform an experimental study of two-dimensional(2D) electron density profiles of the laser-induced plasma plumes in air by ordinarily laboratorial interferometry. The electron density distributions measured show a feature of hollow core. To illustrate the feature, we present a theoretical investigation by using dynamics analysis. In the simulation, the propagation of laser pulse with the evolution of electron density is utilized to evaluate ionization of air target for the plasma-formation stage. In the plasma-expansion stage, a simple adiabatic fluid dynamics is used to calculate the evolution of plasma outward expansion. The simulations show good agreements with experimental results, and demonstrate an effective way of determining 2D density profiles of the laser-induced plasma plume in gas.
We investigate the plasmonic-field-enhanced high-order harmonic generation(HHG) of H atom driven by few-cycle laser pulses, by solving the time-dependent Schr?dinger equation(TDSE). Compared with the homogeneous field, HHG spectra generated by inhomogeneous field exhibit two-plateau structure. We analyze the origin of the two plateaus by using the semiclassical trajectory method. Our results from both classical and TDSE simulations show that the cutoffs of the two plateaus are dramatically affected by the carrier-envelope phase(CEP) of laser pulse in the inhomogeneous field, even for a little longer pulse. Thus, we can determine the CEP of driving laser based on the cutoff position of HHG generated in the inhomogeneous field.
