arXiv subjects

Roland E. Mainz

Publications and source records attributed to Roland E. Mainz.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Roadmap on Attosecond Science

Twenty-five years have passed since the first experimental demonstration of attosecond pulses, marking the advent of our ability to resolve and control electron motion in real time. What began as a technological breakthrough - generating the shortest flashes ever produced - has evolved into a powerful approach for probing and steering electronic dynamics in atoms, molecules, and solids. This roadmap, authored by leading experts in the field, surveys the recent rapid progress in the generation and characterization of attosecond pulses, emerging attosecond measurement and control techniques, and their expanding range of applications. It reviews current and future developments in attosecond light sources, including novel laser technologies, waveform synthesizers, new schemes for high-order harmonic generation, attosecond pulse generation at free-electron lasers, and structured light. Advances in attosecond measurement methodologies are also discussed, encompassing all-attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, attosecond four-wave mixing, attosecond microscopy, spectroscopy with light transients, and attosecond interferometry. Furthermore, the roadmap addresses applications of attosecond spectroscopy to reveal electron dynamics in molecules and condensed matter systems from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, and highlights emerging directions at the interface with quantum optics and quantum entanglement. Overall, this work aims to serve as a comprehensive resource for navigating the evolving landscape of attosecond science.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Parametric Waveform Synthesis: a scalable approach to generate sub-cycle optical transients

The availability of electromagnetic pulses with controllable field waveform and extremely short duration, even below a single optical cycle, is imperative to fully harness strong-field processes and to gain insight into ultrafast light-driven mechanisms occurring in the attosecond time-domain. The recently demonstrated parametric waveform synthesis (PWS) introduces an energy-, power- and spectrum-scalable method to generate non-sinusoidal sub-cycle optical waveforms by coherently combining different phase-stable pulses attained via optical parametric amplifiers. Significant technological developments have been addressed to overcome the stability issues related to PWS and to obtain an effective and reliable waveform control system. Here we present the main ingredients enabling PWS technology. The design choices concerning the optical, mechanical and electronic setups are justified by analytical/numerical modeling and benchmarked by experimental observations. In its present incarnation, the PWS technology enables the generation of field-controllable mJ-level few-femtosecond pulses spanning the visible to infrared range.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Strong-field Coherent Control of Isolated Attosecond Pulse Generation

Attosecond science promises to reveal the most fundamental electronic dynamics occurring in matter and it can develop further by meeting two linked technological goals related to high-order harmonic sources: higher photon flux (permitting to measure low cross-section processes) and improved spectral tunability (allowing selectivity in addressing specific electronic transitions). New developments come through parametric waveform synthesis, which provides control over the shape of high-energy electric field transients, enabling the creation of highly-tunable isolated attosecond pulses via high-harmonic generation. Here we show that central energy, spectral bandwidth/shape and temporal duration of the attosecond pulses can be controlled by shaping the laser pulse waveform via two key parameters: the relative-phase between two halves of the multi-octave spanning optical spectrum, and the overall carrier-envelope phase. These results not only promise to expand the experimental possibilities in attosecond science, but also demonstrate coherent strong-field control of free-electron trajectories using tailored optical waveforms.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

Polarization-state-resolved high-harmonic spectroscopy of solids

Attosecond metrology sensitive to sub-optical-cycle electronic and structural dynamics is opening up new avenues for ultrafast spectroscopy of condensed matter. Using intense lightwaves to precisely control the extremely fast carrier dynamics in crystals holds great promise for next-generation electronics and devices operating at petahertz bandwidth. The carrier dynamics can produce high-order harmonics of the driving light field extending up into the extreme-ultraviolet region. Here, we introduce polarization-state-resolved high-harmonic spectroscopy of solids, which provides deeper insights into both electronic and structural dynamics occuring within a single cycle of light. Performing high-harmonic generation measurements from silicon and quartz samples, we demonstrate that the polarization states of high-order harmonics emitted from solids are not only determined by crystal symmetries, but can be dynamically controlled, as a consequence of the intertwined interband and intraband electronic dynamics, responsible for the harmonic generation. We exploit this symmetry-dynamics duality to efficiently generate circularly polarized harmonics from elliptically polarized driver pulses. Our experimental results are supported by ab-initio simulations, providing clear evidence for the microscopic origin of the phenomenon. This spectroscopy technique might find important applications in future studies of novel quantum materials such as strongly correlated materials. Compact sources of bright circularly polarized harmonics in the extreme-ultraviolet regime will advance our tools for the spectroscopy of chiral systems, magnetic materials, and 2D materials with valley selectivity.

physics.optics↗