Time-resolved ellipticity gating of high-order harmonic emission

Summary, in English

We present time-resolved cross-correlation measurements of extreme ultraviolet (xuv) pulses generated as high-order harmonics of intense 35 fs pulses, using a short (12 fs) probe pulse. We modulate the ellipticity of the laser driving the generation process such that the polarization is linear for short times around the temporal peak of the pulse. Since harmonic generation is strongly suppressed for very small amounts of driving laser ellipticity, the emission of xuv radiation can therefore be confined to times much shorter than the laser pulse duration. In addition, our setup allows us to continuously confine the xuv emission as well as to determine its frequency sweep during the pulse.