Observation of high-contrast coherence fringes in high-order harmonic generation

Sophie Kazamias (1) , D. Douillet (1) , C. Valentin (1) , F. Weihe (1) , Frederika Auge-Rochereau (1) , Thierry Lefrou (1) , G. Grillon (1) , Stéphane Sebban (1) , Philippe Balcou (1)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée

We present a direct measurement of the coherence length in the high-order-harmonic generation process up to orders as high as 25. The harmonic signal generated in an argon gas cell by a 805-nm, 6-mJ, 30-fs laser is studied as a function of medium length and shows very high-contrast coherence fringes. From a one-dimensional time-dependent model, we unravel the conditions for which such Maker fringes can appear in high-order harmonic generation.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Sophie Kazamias, D. Douillet, C. Valentin, F. Weihe, Frederika Auge-Rochereau, et al.. Observation of high-contrast coherence fringes in high-order harmonic generation. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, 2003, 68 (3), pp.033819. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.68.033819⟩. ⟨hal-00522997⟩