We theoretically propose a new method for generating intense isolated attosecond pulses during high-order harmonic generation (HHG) process by accurately controlling electron motion with a two-color laser field, which consists of an 800-nm, 4-fs elliptically polarized laser field and a 1400-nm, ~43-fs linearly polarized laser field. With this method, the supercontinua with a spectral width above 200 eV are obtained, which can support a ~15-as isolated pulse after phase compensation. Classical and quantum analyses explain the controlling effects well. In particular, when the pulse duration of the 800-nm laser field increases to 20-fs, sub-100-as isolated pulses can be obtained even without any phase compensation.

By optimizing the phase matching condition of high harmonic generation (HHG) from a supersonic neon gas jet, the enhanced HHG in the region of 60?70 eV has been selected. Three-dimensional numerical calculation shows that plasma plays a significant role in the phase matching process of HHG in a supersonic gas jet with short medium length. Due to plasma formation, the harmonic emission decays as the laser intensity reaches over 3.5 ￡ 1014 W/cm2. The plasma induces the broadening and blue shift of the HHG spectra, which provides a method for fine-tuning the harmonic wavelength.

The conversion efficiency on the sixth harmonic of 1064 nm in KBe2BO3F2 (KBBF) at different gas pressures in two kinds of gases, helium and nitrogen, is measured and compared. In the both gases, maximum conversion efficiency on the sixth harmonic of 1064 nm in high vacuum is nearly 10% of 355 nm, which is almost four times higher than that in low vacuum. The maximum average output power at 177.3 nm is 670 \muW with the repetition rate of 10 Hz and the duration of 20 ps in high vacuum. It indicates that the sixth harmonic generation in high vacuum is more preferable than that in low vacuum.

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy is a recently developed nonlinear optical imaging modality for imaging tissue structures with submicron resolution and is a potent tool for visualizing pathological effects of diseases. In this letter, we present our investigation on the influence of van Gieson's (VG) alcoholic picrofuchsin staining on SHG in type I collagen (from tendon-rich C57BL/6). Multi-channel imaging and spectra analysis show that the strong SHG signal produced in fresh collagen type I fiber has been greatly suppressed after VG staining, which indicates that staining may induce the structural or characteristic changes of SHG-dependent crystal formed by collagen constituents, such as glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline.

This paper reports fundamental aspects of high-order harmonic generation from N2, O2 and CO2 molecules spatially aligned with intense femtosecond laser pulses. The time-dependent harmonic signal observed with a pump and probe technique has been found to include several sets of beat frequency for pairs of coherently populated rotational states. We have shown the origin of each frequency component and its effect on the revival signal. The results demonstrate that the high-order harmonic generation provides a sensitive and useful way for an extensive study of dynamic processes in the field-free alignment of molecules.

A new physical explanation of the fringes in the high-order harmonic spectra generated by ellipticity-modulated infrared pulses is proposed, which is different from those in previous works. In this work we find that the fringes are due to the spectral interference effect induced by the two outgoing pulses with a delay, which are generated by the wave plates for ellipticity control. The visibility of interference fringes observed experimentally increases with the increase of the asymmetry of the two pulses, with the decrease of the delay and with the increase of peak intensity of the driving laser pulse. The experimental results are in good agreement with the calculated ones.

High-order harmonic generation from one-dimensional (1D) multi-atom molecular ions in an ultra-short laser field is theoretically investigated. The dynamics of the electron in a linearly polarized intense laser field is analyzed in terms of 1D Schrodinger equation with the Crank-Nicolson algorithm. The dependence of high-order harmonics on the laser frequency and the inter-nuclear distance is discussed. It is found that the optimum range of inter-nuclear distance should be changed to get extended harmonic generation for different laser frequency, and the lower frequency laser pulse is favorable to higher order harmonic generation as the inter-nuclear distance increases.

Phase-matched high-order harmonic generation in Ar gas-filled cell is investigated experimentally. We obtain phase-matched 27th order harmonic driven by a commercially available solid-state femtosecond laser system at 0.55 mJ/pulse energy level and 1-kHz repetition rate. Moreover, we find that the spatial distribution of intensity of high-order harmonics is flat-top profile other than a Gaussian one under the condition of optimized conversion efficiency in the static gas cell.