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Coherent control with a short-wavelength free-electron laser

2016; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 10; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nphoton.2016.13

1749-4893

Kevin C. Prince, E. Allaria, Carlo Callegari, Riccardo Cucini, G. De Ninno, S. Di Mitri, B. Diviacco, Eugenio Ferrari, P. Finetti, D. Gauthier, L. Giannessi, Nicola Mahne, G. Penco, Oksana Plekan, Lorenzo Raimondi, Primož Rebernik Ribič, Eléonore Roussel, Cristian Svetina, Marcelo Trovó, Marco Zangrando, M. Negro, Paolo Carpeggiani, Maurizio Reduzzi, G. Sansone, Alexei N. Grum-Grzhimailo, Elena V. Gryzlova, С. И. Страхова, Klaus Bartschat, Nicolas Douguet, Joel Venzke, Denys Iablonskyi, Yoshiaki Kumagai, Tsukasa Takanashi, Kiyoshi Ueda, Andreas Fischer, Marcello Coreno, F. Stienkemeier, Yevheniy Ovcharenko, Tommaso Mazza, Michael Meyer,

Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications

Researchers demonstrate correlation of two colours (63.0 and 31.5 nm wavelengths) in a free-electron laser and control photoelectron angular distribution by adjusting phase with 3 attosecond resolution. Extreme ultraviolet and X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) produce short-wavelength pulses with high intensity, ultrashort duration, well-defined polarization and transverse coherence, and have been utilized for many experiments previously possible only at long wavelengths: multiphoton ionization1, pumping an atomic laser2 and four-wave mixing spectroscopy3. However one important optical technique, coherent control, has not yet been demonstrated, because self-amplified spontaneous emission FELs have limited longitudinal coherence4,5,6,7. Single-colour pulses from the FERMI seeded FEL are longitudinally coherent8,9, and two-colour emission is predicted to be coherent. Here, we demonstrate the phase correlation of two colours, and manipulate it to control an experiment. Light of wavelengths 63.0 and 31.5 nm ionized neon, and we controlled the asymmetry of the photoelectron angular distribution10,11 by adjusting the phase, with a temporal resolution of 3 as. This opens the door to new short-wavelength coherent control experiments with ultrahigh time resolution and chemical sensitivity.