Harmonic concatenation of 1.5-femtosecond-pulses in the deep ultraviolet

Abstract

Laser pulses with a duration of one femtosecond or shorter can be generated both in the IR-VIS and in the extreme UV, but the deep UV is a spectral region where such extremely short pulses have not yet been demonstrated. Here, a method for the synthesis of ultrashort pulses in the deep UV is demonstrated, which utilizes the temporal and spatial harmonics that are generated by two noncollinear IR-VIS pulses in a thin MgF2 plate. By controlling the groove-envelope phase of the IR-VIS pulses, spatial harmonics are concatenated to form deep UV waveforms with a duration of 1.5 fs.