Table-Top Milliwatt-Class Extreme Ultraviolet High Harmonic Light Source

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) lasers are essential for the investigation of fundamental physics. Especially high repetition rate, high photon flux sources are of major interest for reducing acquisition times and improving signal to noise ratios in a plethora of applications. Here, an XUV source based on cascaded frequency conversion is presented, which delivers due to the drastic better single atom response for short wavelength drivers, an average output power of (832 +- 204) {\mu}W at 21.7 eV. This is the highest average power produced by any HHG source in this spectral range surpassing precious demonstrations by more than a factor of four. Furthermore, a narrow-band harmonic at 26.6 eV with a relative energy bandwidth of only {\Delta}E/E= 1.8 x 10E-3 has been generated, which is of high interest for high precision spectroscopy experiments.Comment: 4 Pages, 4 Picture

High-average-power femtosecond laser at 258 nm

We present an ultrafast fiber laser system delivering 4.6 W average power at 258 nm based on two-stage fourth-harmonic generation in beta barium borate (BBO). The beam quality is close to being diffraction limited with an M2 value of 1.3×1.6. The pulse duration is 150 fs, which, potentially, is compressible down to 40 fs. A plain BBO and a sapphire-BBO compound are compared with respect to the achievable beam quality in the conversion process. This laser is applicable in scientific and industrial fields. Further scaling to higher average power is discussed

Octave-spanning OPCPA system delivering CEP-stable few-cycle pulses and 22 W of average power at 1 MHz repetition rate

We report on an OPCPA system delivering CEP-stable pulses with a pulse duration of only 1.7 optical cycles at 880 nm wavelength. This pulse duration is achieved by the generation, optical parametric amplification and compression of a full optical octave of bandwidth. The system is pumped by a high average power Yb-fiber laser system, which allows for operation of the OPCPA at up to 1 MHz repetition rate and 22 W of average output power. Further scaling towards single-cycle pulses, higher energy and output power is discussed

Improved Circuit Compilation for Hybrid MPC via Compiler Intermediate Representation

Secure multi-party computation (MPC) allows multiple parties to securely evaluate a public function on their private inputs. The field has steadily moved forward and real-world applications have become practical. However, MPC implementations are often hand-built and require cryptographic knowledge. Thus, special compilers like HyCC (Büscher et al., CCS\u2718) have been developed, which automatically compile high-level programs to combinations of Boolean and arithmetic circuits required for mixed-protocol (hybrid) MPC. In this work, we explore the advantages of extending MPC compilers with an intermediate representation (IR) as commonly used in modern compiler infrastructures. For this, we extend HyCC with a graph-based IR that facilitates the implementation of well-known algorithms from compiler design as well as further MPC-specific optimizations. We demonstrate the benefits by implementing arithmetic decomposition based on our new IR that automatically extracts arithmetic expressions and then compiles them into separate circuits. For a line intersection algorithm, we require 40% less run-time and improve total communication by a factor of 3x compared to regular HyCC when securely evaluating the corresponding circuit with the hybrid MPC framework ABY (Demmler et al., NDSS\u2715)

Absorption-limited high harmonic generation in the tight focusing regime

Phase-matched and absorption-limited HHG can be achieved despite tight focusing. We present theoretical considerations and observed a conversion efficiency of >10-6 in this regime of particular importance for high repetition rate sources

Thermal effects in high average power optical parametric amplifiers

Optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) have the reputation of being average power scalable due to the instantaneous nature of the parametric process (zero quantum defect). This Letter reveals serious challenges originating from thermal load in the nonlinear crystal caused by absorption. We investigate these thermal effects in high average power OPAs based on beta barium borate. Absorption of both pump and idler waves is identified to contribute significantly to heating of the nonlinear crystal. A temperature increase of up to 148 K with respect to the environment is observed and mechanical tensile stress up to 40 MPa is found, indicating a high risk of crystal fracture under such conditions. By restricting the idler to a wavelength range far from absorption bands and removing the crystal coating we reduce the peak temperature and the resulting temperature gradient significantly. Guidelines for further power scaling of OPAs and other nonlinear devices are given

High stability soliton frequency-shifting mechanisms for laser synchronization applications

We analyze frequency-shifting mechanisms in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). In contrast to the generally used approach of launching pulses in the negative group velocity dispersion (GVD) region of PCFs, we suggest employing a fiber with a higher zero dispersion wavelength that is pumped in the positive GVD region. Results of a numerical optimization reveal that the amplitude stability of the frequency-shifted pulses can be improved by more than 1 order of magnitude and the timing jitter arising from input fluctuations by 2 orders of magnitude by a proper choice of the fiber dispersion. The presented approach and optimization will improve the performance of timing- and amplitude-sensitive applications, such as nonlinear microscopy and spectroscopy or optical synchronization for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification significantly

Generation of high-photon flux-coherent soft x-ray radiation with few-cycle pulses

We present a tabletop source of coherent soft x-ray radiation with high-photon flux. Two-cycle pulses delivered by a fiber-laser-pumped optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier operating at 180 kHz repetition rate are upconverted via high harmonic generation in neon to photon energies beyond 200 eV. A maximum photon flux of 1.3x10 to the power of 8 photons/s is achieved within a 1% bandwidth at 125 eV photon energy. This corresponds to a conversion efficiency of ~10 to the power of -9, which can be reached due to a gas jet simultaneously providing a high target density and phase matching. Further scaling potential toward higher photon flux as well as higher photon energies are discussed

Single-pass high harmonic generation at high repetition rate and photon flux

Sources of short wavelength radiation with femtosecond to attosecond pulse durations, such as synchrotrons or free electron lasers, have already made possible numerous, and will facilitate more, seminal studies aimed at understanding atomic and molecular processes on fundamental length and time scales. Table-top sources of coherent extreme ultraviolet to soft x-ray radiation enabled by high harmonic generation (HHG) of ultrashort pulse lasers have also gained significant attention in the last few years due to their enormous potential for addressing a plethora of applications, therefore constituting a complementary source to large-scale facilities (synchrotrons and free electron lasers). Ti:sapphire based laser systems have been the workhorses for HHG for decades, but are limited in repetition rate and average power. On the other hand, it has been widely recognized that fostering applications in fields such as photoelectron spectroscopy and microscopy, coincidence detection, coherent diffractive imaging and frequency metrology requires a high repetition rate and high photon flux HHG sources. In this article we will review recent developments in realizing the demanding requirement of producing a high photon flux and repetition rate at the same time. Particular emphasis will be put on suitable ultrashort pulse and high average power lasers, which directly drive harmonic generation without the need for external enhancement cavities. To this end we describe two complementary schemes that have been successfully employed for high power fiber lasers, i.e. optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers and nonlinear pulse compression. Moreover, the issue of phase-matching in tight focusing geometries will be discussed and connected to recent experiments. We will highlight the latest results in fiber laser driven high harmonic generation that currently produce the highest photon flux of all existing sources. In addition, we demonstrate the first promising applications and discuss the future direction and challenges of this new type of HHG source