Towards intense single-digit attosecond pulses with a 100-mJ-class mid-infrared sub-cycle laser
- 1Extreme Photonics Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198 Japan.
Abstract
The duration of isolated attosecond pulses created via high-order harmonic generation is determined by the number of optical cycles in the driving laser. Achieving shorter attosecond soft x-ray pulses requires minimizing the number of cycles while maintaining a high pulse energy. Here, we demonstrate a carrier-envelope-phase-stable, 100-mJ-class sub-cycle mid-infrared laser that produces a supercontinuum coherent soft-x-ray with unprecedented bandwidth. The system delivers 50-mJ, 6.7-fs (0.88-cycle) pulses at a center wavelength of 2.26 μm-over two orders of magnitude more energetic than any previous sub-cycle laser. We applied the system to high-order harmonic generation and compared the results to simulations based on the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation to identify unique features of sub-cycle lasers. This work represents a decisive step toward high-energy half-cycle lasers and high-energy single-digit attosecond soft x-ray pulses that can be used to probe matter and light-matter interactions at previously inaccessible temporal resolutions.
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BibTeX
@article{nishimiya2026towards,
title = {{Towards intense single-digit attosecond pulses with a 100-mJ-class mid-infrared sub-cycle laser}},
author = {Kaito Nishimiya and Rambabu Rajpoot and Eiji J. Takahashi},
journal = {Science Advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aed5357},
url = {https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed5357},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Towards intense single-digit attosecond pulses with a 100-mJ-class mid-infrared sub-cycle laser
AU - Kaito Nishimiya
AU - Rambabu Rajpoot
AU - Eiji J. Takahashi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Science Advances
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aed5357
UR - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed5357
AB - The duration of isolated attosecond pulses created via high-order harmonic generation is determined by the number of optical cycles in the driving laser. Achieving shorter attosecond soft x-ray pulses requires minimizing the number of cycles while maintaining a high pulse energy. Here, we demonstrate a carrier-envelope-phase-stable, 100-mJ-class sub-cycle mid-infrared laser that produces a supercontinuum coherent soft-x-ray with unprecedented bandwidth. The system delivers 50-mJ, 6.7-fs (0.88-cycle) pulses at a center wavelength of 2.26 μm-over two orders of magnitude more energetic than any previous sub-cycle laser. We applied the system to high-order harmonic generation and compared the results to simulations based on the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation to identify unique features of sub-cycle lasers. This work represents a decisive step toward high-energy half-cycle lasers and high-energy single-digit attosecond soft x-ray pulses that can be used to probe matter and light-matter interactions at previously inaccessible temporal resolutions.
SN - 2375-2548
ER -