Abstract

It is now possible to generate attosecond (1 as = 10⁻¹⁸ s) pulses both as trains of pulses or as isolated sub-femtosecond pulses. As this source gets available, numerous applications are emerging and the attosecond pulses needs to be controlled to fulfil the requirements imposed by these experiments. During this talk I will present how one can manipulate the polarization of an intense short pulse and how this can be used to generate attosecond pulses both as train or isolated pulses. I will also describe the opportunities offered by this approach in terms of control of the attosecond pulse, especially for the tunability and duration of the attosecond pulse or pulse train. I will also present the necessary characteristics on the fundamental pulse (pulse duration, carrier envelop phase stabilization and so on) as well as some tools that we developed to use these pulses. I will for instance present a simple ultrastable interferometer that allows performing time resolved applications with a high resolution since its temporal resolution was measured below 20 as.

© 2007 IEEE