Orientation and Ellipticity Dependence of High-order Harmonic Generation in Nanowires

It has been predicted that high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in nanowires has the potential to scale up photon energy and harmonic yield. However, studies on HHG in nanowires are still theoretical and no relevant experimental results have been reported as yet. Our experimental observation of the high-order harmonic in cadmium sulfide nanowires (CdS NWs) excited by a mid-infrared laser is, to our knowledge, the first such study, and it verifies some of the theoretical results. Our experimental results show that the observed harmonics are strongest when a pump laser is parallel to the nanowires. Therefore, the theoretical prediction that harmonics are strongest under the nanowires parallel to the laser field is confirmed experimentally; this can be used to determine the orientation of the nanowire. In addition, harmonics are sensitive to the variation of pump light ellipticities. This orientation dependence opens new opportunities to access ultrafast and strong-field physics of nanowires.

Mid-Infrared Few-Cycle Pulse Generation and Amplification

In the past decade, mid-infrared (MIR) few-cycle lasers have attracted remarkable research efforts for their applications in strong-field physics, MIR spectroscopy, and bio-medical research. Here we present a review of MIR few-cycle pulse generation and amplification in the wavelength range spanning from 2 to ~20 μm. In the first section, a brief introduction on the importance of MIR ultrafast lasers and the corresponding methods of MIR few-cycle pulse generation is provided. In the second section, different nonlinear crystals including emerging non-oxide crystals, such as CdSiP2, ZnGeP2, GaSe, LiGaS2, and BaGa4Se7, as well as new periodically poled crystals such as OP-GaAs and OP-GaP are reviewed. Subsequently, in the third section, the various techniques for MIR few-cycle pulse generation and amplification including optical parametric amplification, optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification, and intra-pulse difference-frequency generation with all sorts of designs, pumped by miscellaneous lasers, and with various MIR output specifications in terms of pulse energy, average power, and pulse width are reviewed. In addition, high-energy MIR single-cycle pulses are ideal tools for isolated attosecond pulse generation, electron dynamic investigation, and tunneling ionization harness. Thus, in the fourth section, examples of state-of-the-art work in the field of MIR single-cycle pulse generation are reviewed and discussed. In the last section, prospects for MIR few-cycle lasers in strong-field physics, high-fidelity molecule detection, and cold tissue ablation applications are provided.

Coherent control at gold needle tips approaching the strong-field regime

We demonstrate coherent control in photoemission from a gold needle tip using an ω − 2ω field composed of strong few-cycle laser pulses with a nearfield intensity of ∼4 TW/cm2. We obtain the nearfield intensity from electron energy spectra, showing the tell-tale plateau of field-driven electron rescattering at the metal surface induced by the fundamental field. Changing the relative phase between the fundamental field centered at 1560 nm and its second harmonic modulates the total emitted photocurrent with visibilities of up to 80% despite the strong and broadband excitation of the plasmonic material. Our work combines a two-color coherent control scheme and strong-field physics enabled by a nanoplasmonic emitter.

Efficient Generation of Spectrum-Manipulated Few-Cycle Laser Pulses through Cascaded Dual-Chirped OPA

The cascaded dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) is presented for efficient generation of few-cycle infrared (IR) laser pulses. The input pulses are strategically chirped to optimize the phase-matching bandwidth in each nonlinear crystal, and four regions of the signal spectrum are amplified in cascaded crystals with different cutting angles, enabling flexible manipulation of the output spectrum. Broadband gain and high conversion efficiency are simultaneously achieved owing to the cascaded-crystal arrangement, the signal pulse duration of 4.2 cycles is obtained with 11.7-mJ pulse energy, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 39.0%. The proposed scheme offers a robust and simple approach to pushing the phase-matching bandwidth limits introduced by the nonlinear crystal, which manifests great prospect in various researches involving ultrafast optics and strong-field physics.

Author Correction: Terahertz strong-field physics in light-emitting diodes for terahertz detection and imaging

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-021-00592-6

Correction to: Strong field physics pursued with petawatt lasers

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Strong field physics pursued with petawatt lasers

Recent ultra-short high-power lasers can provide ultra-high laser intensity over 1022 W/cm2. Laser fields of such extreme strengths instantaneously turn matter into plasma, which exhibits relativistic collective dynamics, thereby leading to unprecedented physical systems with potential breakthrough applications. In this article, we introduce the basic concepts and trace the progress in ultra-high intensity laser development and relativistic laser-plasma interactions, including laser-driven charged particle acceleration.

Terahertz strong-field physics in light-emitting diodes for terahertz detection and imaging

Intense terahertz (THz) electromagnetic fields have been utilized to reveal a variety of extremely nonlinear optical effects in many materials through nonperturbative driving of elementary and collective excitations. However, such nonlinear photoresponses have not yet been obeserved in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), let alone employing them as fast, cost-effective, compact, and room-temperature-operating THz detectors and cameras. Here, we report ubiquitously available LEDs exhibiting photovoltaic signals of ~0.8 V and ~2 ns response time with signal-to-noise ratios of ~1300 when being illuminated by THz field strengths ~240 kV/cm. We also demonstrated THz-LED detectors and camera prototypes. These unorthodox THz detectors exhibited high responsivities (>1 kV/W) with response time four orders of magnitude shorter than those of pyroelectric detectors. The mechanism was attributed to THz-field-induced impact ionization and Schottky contact. These findings not only help deepen our understanding of strong THz field-matter interactions but also contribute to the applications of strong-field THz diagnosis.