Separation of target structure and medium propagation effects in high-harmonic generation Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We calculate high-harmonic generation (HHG) by intense infrared lasers in atoms and molecules with the inclusion of macroscopic propagation of the harmonics in the gas medium. We show that the observed experimental spectra can be accurately reproduced theoretically despite the sensitivities of the HHG spectra to the experimental conditions. We further demonstrate that the simulated (or experimental) HHG spectra can be factored out as a product of a 'macroscopic wave packet' and the photo-recombination transition dipole moment where the former depends on the laser properties and the experimental conditions, while the latter is the property of the target only. The factorization makes it possible to extract target structure from experimental HHG spectra, and for ultrafast dynamic imaging of transient molecules. 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF PHYSICS B-ATOMIC MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

author list (cited authors)

  • Jin, C., Woerner, H. J., Tosa, V., Le, A., Bertrand, J. B., Lucchese, R. R., ... Lin, C. D.

citation count

  • 28

complete list of authors

  • Jin, Cheng||Woerner, Hans Jakob||Tosa, V||Le, Anh-Thu||Bertrand, Julien B||Lucchese, RR||Corkum, PB||Villeneuve, DM||Lin, CD

publication date

  • May 2011