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1. Amplification of a train of attosecond pulses in a plasma-based X-ray laser driven by an IR field

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1412/7/072019  

   Antonov, V A; Han, K C; Khairulin, I R; Kocharovskaya, O (January 2020, Journal of Physics: Conference Series)

   Synopsis We suggest a technique to amplify a train of attosecond pulses, produced via high-harmonic generation of an infrared laser field, in active medium of a plasma-based X-ray laser driven by a replica of the same IR field as used to produce high harmonics forming a train of attosecond pulses. 

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2. Attosecond x-ray free-electron lasers utilizing an optical undulator in a self-selection regime

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.27.011301  

   Xu, Xinlu; Liu, Jiaxin; Dalichaouch, Thamine; Tsung, Frank S; Zhang, Zhen; Huang, Zhirong; Hogan, Mark J; Yan, Xueqing; Joshi, Chan; Mori, Warren B (January 2024, Physical Review Accelerators and Beams)

   Accelerator-based x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) are the latest addition to the revolutionary tools of discovery for the 21st century. The two major components of an XFEL are an accelerator-produced electron beam and a magnetic undulator, which tend to be kilometer-scale long and expensive. A proof-of-principle demonstration of free-electron lasing at 27 nm using beams from compact laser wakefield accelerators was shown recently by using a magnetic undulator. However, scaling these concepts to x-ray wavelengths is far from straightforward as the requirements on the beam quality and jitters become much more stringent. Here, we present an ultracompact scheme to produce tens of attosecond x-ray pulses with several GW peak power utilizing a novel aspect of the FEL instability using a highly chirped, prebunched, and ultrabright tens of MeVelectron beam from a plasma-based accelerator interacting with an optical undulator. The FEL resonant relation between the prebunched period and the energy selects resonant electrons automatically from the highly chirped beam which leads to a stable generation of attosecond x-ray pulses. Furthermore, two-color attosecond pulses with subfemtosecond separation can be produced by adjusting the energy distribution of the electron beam so that multiple FEL resonances occur at different locations within the beam. Such a tunable coherent attosecond x-ray sources may open up a new area of attosecond science enabled by x-ray attosecond pump/probe techniques 

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3. Boosting the efficiency of high harmonic amplification by modulating a plasma-based X-ray laser with the second harmonic of the fundamental frequency laser field

   Khairulin, I.R.; Antonov, I.R.; Kocharovskaya, O. (October 2021, International conference on Ultrafast Optical Science)

   Attosecond pulses formed by high order harmonics (HHs) of an infrared (IR) laser field is a powerful tool for studying and controlling ultrafast dynamics of electrons in atoms, molecules and solids at its intrinsic time-scale. However, in the X-ray range the energy of attosecond pulses is rather limited. Their amplification is an important but very challenging problem since none of the existing amplifiers can support the corresponding PHz bandwidth. In our previous work [1] we proposed a method for the attosecond pulse amplification in hydrogen-like active medium of a recombination plasma-based X-ray laser dressed by a replica of the fundamental frequency IR field used for the HH generation. Due to the IRfield-induced sub-laser-cycle Stark shift and splitting of the lasing energy levels the gain of the active medium is redistributed over the combination frequencies, separated from the resonance by even multiples of the frequency of the IR field. If the incident HHs forming an attosecond pulse train are tuned in resonance with the induced gain lines and the active plasma medium is strongly dispersive for the modulating IR field, then during the amplification the relative phases of harmonics and (under the optimal choice of the IR field strength) the shape of the amplified pulses will be preserved. In the present work we show the possibility of boosting the efficiency of HH amplification by modulating the active medium of an X-ray laser with the second harmonic of the fundamental frequency IR field. We show that under the action of a laser field (with arbitrary frequency) the gain redistribution occurs not only over the even combination frequencies discussed in [1], but also over the odd frequencies separated from the resonance by odd multiples of the laser frequency. Besides, nearly half of the medium gain is contained in the even induced gain lines, and nearly half in the odd. If the modulating field is the second harmonic of the IR field, used for the generation the HHs and attosecond pulses, then the seeding HHs can be tuned in resonance with both even and odd gain lines simultaneously, which will make the overall gain much higher as compared to the previously considered case of the fundamental frequency modulating field (when only the even gain lines play the role). By the example of the C5+ X-ray laser with 3.38 nm wavelength of the inverted transition we show the possibility of increasing the efficiency of 430 as pulse amplification by 8.5 times when the active medium is modulated with the second harmonic of the fundamental frequency IR field with wavelength 2.1 µm. 

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4. Interference effects in the high-order harmonic amplification process in the active medium of a plasma-based X-ray laser modulated by an optical field

   https://doi.org/10.1070/QEL17290  

   Khairulin, IR; Antonov, VA; Kocharovskaya, OA (April 2020, Quantum Electronics)

   Abstract We study the process of propagation of high harmonics of optical radiation in an active medium of a plasma-based X-ray laser, simultaneously irradiated by an intense optical field of fundamental frequency. It is shown that for moderate plasma dispersion of the active medium at the frequency of the modulating optical field, the energy and relative amplitudes of the harmonics at the output of the medium are determined by their phases at the entrance to the medium, as well as by the time-delay of the harmonics with respect to the modulating field. These dependences are due to interference of high-order harmonics with a set of multi-frequency fields generated by each of the harmonics in the process of coherent scattering in a modulated active medium. The possibilities of using these effects to increase the efficiency of harmonic amplification, to control the harmonic spectrum, and determine the relative phases at the entrance to the medium are discussed on the example of the active medium of hydrogen-like Li²⁺ions (with a 13.5 nm wavelength of an inverted transition). 

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5. Enhanced Amplification of Attosecond Pulses in a Hydrogen-like Plasma-Based X-ray Laser Modulated by an Infrared Field at the Second Harmonic of Fundamental Frequency

   https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9020051  

   Khairulin, Ilias R.; Antonov, Vladimir A.; Ryabikin, Mikhail Yu.; Kocharovskaya, Olga (February 2022, Photonics)

   In a recent work (Antonov et al., Physical Review Letters 123, 243903 (2019)), it was shown that it is possible to amplify a train of attosecond pulses, which are produced from the radiation of high harmonics of the infrared field of the fundamental frequency, in the active medium of a plasma-based X-ray laser modulated by a replica of the infrared field of the same frequency. In this paper, we show that much higher amplification can be achieved using the second harmonic of the fundamental frequency for modulating of a hydrogen-like active medium. The physical reason for such enhanced amplification is the possibility to use all (even and odd) sidebands induced in the gain spectrum in the case of the modulating field of the doubled fundamental frequency, while only one set of sidebands (either even or odd) could participate in amplification in the case of the modulating field of the fundamental frequency due to the fact that the spectral components of the high-harmonic field are separated by twice the fundamental frequency. Using the plasma of hydrogen-like C5+ ions with an inverted transition wavelength of 3.38 nm in the water window as an example, it is shown that the use of a modulating field at a doubled fundamental frequency makes it possible to increase the intensity of amplified attosecond pulses by an order of magnitude in comparison with the previously studied case of a fundamental frequency modulating field. 

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