Coherent amplification of attosecond light pulses in the water-window spectral region

Abstract

We present a theoretical study on coherent extreme ultraviolet (XUV) attosecond pulse amplification mediated by nonlinear parametric enhanced forward scattering occurring in the interaction of a strong femtosecond infrared (IR) laser pulse combined with a weak attosecond XUV pulse train with an atom. We predict large amplification of XUV radiation when the IR strong pulse and the XUV weak pulse are optimally phased. We study high-order harmonic processes (HHG) in He, He+ and Ne++, and show how although the HHG yield is largely affected by the particular atom used as target, nonlinear parametric XUV amplification is only weakly affected. We conclude that XUV nonlinear parametric attosecond pulse amplification can be most efficiently observed by using atoms with a high ionization potential and that the nonlinear amplification is robust at high photon energies where HHG is not efficient, such as in the water-window spectral region.