Attosecond Pulse Shaping by Multilayer Mirrors

Abstract

The emerging research field of attosecond science allows for the temporal investigation of one of the fastest dynamics in nature: electron dynamics in matter. These dynamics are responsible for chemical and biological processes, and the ability to understand and control them opens a new door of fundamental science, with the possibility to influence all lives if medical issues can thereby be addressed. Multilayer optics are key elements in attosecond experiments; they are used to tailor attosecond pulses with well-defined characteristics to facilitate detailed and accurate insight into processes, e.g., photoemission, Auger decay, or (core-) excitons. Based on the investigations and research efforts from the past several years, multilayer mirrors today are routinely used optical elements in attosecond beamlines. As a consequence, the generation of ultrashort pulses, combined with their dispersion control, has proceeded from the femtosecond range in the visible/infrared spectra to the attosecond range, covering the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray photon range up to the water window. This article reviews our work on multilayer optics over the past several years, as well as the impact from other research groups, to reflect on the scientific background of their nowadays routine use in attosecond physics.

Coupling silica waveguides to photonic crystal waveguides through a multilayered Luneburg lens

“…In this paper, we implement the Luneburg lens as a ring-based multilayer structure. Different applications have been introduced based on the interference effect in multilayer structures [29][30][31][32]. However, the interference effect diminishes considerably as the thickness of the layers become much smaller than the wavelength of the light.…”

Design of reflective phase retarders in the extreme ultraviolet based on chirped Mo/Si multilayer mirrors

“…The chirped multilayer mirror is a structure whose thickness distribution is regularly varied. It has been widely used for the phase control of ultrashort pulses, such as pulse compression of attosecond pulses (Guggenmos et al, 2018;Morlens et al, 2005;Hofstetter et al, 2011) and dispersion control of femtosecond pulses (Pervak et al, 2007(Pervak et al, , 2009Miranda et al, 2011). In this paper, a linearly chirped Mo/Si multilayer is used to design a phase retarder in the EUV region.…”