Optimal generation of delay-controlled few-cycle pulses for high harmonic generation in solids

Delay-controlled two-color, few-cycle pulses are powerful tools for ultrafast nonlinear optics. In this Letter, 35-fs, 800 nm pulses were injected into a noble-gas-filled hollow-core fiber to obtain over-octave spectra (450–1000 nm) and were divided into two parts for dispersion management by a Mach–Zehnder–type interferometer. Two few-cycle pulses with pulse widths of 9.3 and 4.5 fs were generated in the long-wavelength side and the short-wavelength side, respectively. The temporal profiles were measured as the function of the different delay between the two pulses. The shortest 3.6 fs, 0.75 mJ near-single-cycle pulses were synthesized at an optimal delay. The delay-controlled high-harmonic generation in MgO was experimentally demonstrated leading to twofold enhancement of high-order harmonic (HH) yields at 10.3 eV and the extension of HH frequency under time-delay modulation. This method provides an extensive way for manipulating delay-controlled multi-color pulses, which can be used for controlling ionization dynamics in extreme nonlinear optics. We believe that it will be a powerful tool for ultrafast science.