Bright, high-repetition-rate water window soft X-ray source enabled by nonlinear pulse self-compression in an antiresonant hollow-core fibre

Gebhardt M, Heuermann T, Klas R, Liu C, Kirsche A, Lenski M, Wang Z, Gaida C, Antonio-Lopez JE, Schulzgen A, Amezcua-Correa R, Rothhardt J, Limpert J (2021)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

Light: Science & Applications CIOMP

Book Volume: 10

Article Number: 36

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.1038/s41377-021-00477-x

Abstract

Bright, coherent soft X-ray radiation is essential to a variety of applications in fundamental research and life sciences. To date, a high photon flux in this spectral region can only be delivered by synchrotrons, free-electron lasers or high-order harmonic generation sources, which are driven by kHz-class repetition rate lasers with very high peak powers. Here, we establish a novel route toward powerful and easy-to-use SXR sources by presenting a compact experiment in which nonlinear pulse self-compression to the few-cycle regime is combined with phase-matched high-order harmonic generation in a single, helium-filled antiresonant hollow-core fibre. This enables the first 100 kHz-class repetition rate, table-top soft X-ray source that delivers an application-relevant flux of 2.8 × 106 photon s−1 eV−1 around 300 eV. The fibre integration of temporal pulse self-compression (leading to the formation of the necessary strong-field waveforms) and pressure-controlled phase matching will allow compact, high-repetition-rate laser technology, including commercially available systems, to drive simple and cost-effective, coherent high-flux soft X-ray sources.

Involved external institutions

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena DE Germany (DE) University of Central Florida (UCF) US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Gebhardt, M., Heuermann, T., Klas, R., Liu, C., Kirsche, A., Lenski, M.,... Limpert, J. (2021). Bright, high-repetition-rate water window soft X-ray source enabled by nonlinear pulse self-compression in an antiresonant hollow-core fibre. Light: Science & Applications, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00477-x

MLA:

Gebhardt, M., et al. "Bright, high-repetition-rate water window soft X-ray source enabled by nonlinear pulse self-compression in an antiresonant hollow-core fibre." Light: Science & Applications 10.1 (2021).

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