title: Bright high-order harmonic generation with controllable polarization from a relativistic plasma mirror.
abstract: Ultrafast extreme ultraviolet (XUV) sources with a controllable polarization state are powerful tools for investigating the structural and electronic as well as the magnetic properties of materials. However, such light sources are still limited to only a few free-electron laser facilities and, very recently, to high-order harmonic generation from noble gases. Here we propose and numerically demonstrate a laser-plasma scheme to generate bright XUV pulses with fully controlled polarization. In this scheme, an elliptically polarized laser pulse is obliquely incident on a plasma surface, and the reflected radiation contains pulse trains and isolated circularly or highly elliptically polarized attosecond XUV pulses. The harmonic polarization state is fully controlled by the laser-plasma parameters. The mechanism can be explained within the relativistically oscillating mirror model. This scheme opens a practical and promising route to generate bright attosecond XUV pulses with desirable ellipticities in a straightforward and efficient way for a number of applications.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf D-40225, Germany.|National Key Laboratory of Shock Wave and Detonation Physics, Institute of Fluid Physics, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang 621999, China.
authors.forename: Zi-Yu
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik I, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf D-40225, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pukhov