High-order parametric generation of coherent XUV radiation

Abstract

We observe a new regime of coherent XUV radiation generation in noble gases induced by femtosecond pulses at very high intensities. This XUV emission has both a reduced divergence and spectral width as compared to high-order harmonic generation (HHG). It is not emitted at a moderate intensity of the driving pulses where only high-order harmonics are generated. At high driving intensities, the additional XUV comb appears near all harmonic orders and even exceeds the HHG signal on the axis. The peaks are observed in several gases and their frequencies do not depend on the driving intensity or gas pressure. We analyze the divergence, spectral width and spectral shift of this XUV emission. We show that these specific features are well explained by high-order parametric generation (HPG) involving multiphoton absorption and combined emission of an idler THz radiation and an XUV beam with remarkably smooth spatial and spectral characteristics.