Phase-stabilized Ultrafast Laser Sources for Spectroscopy: Ultra-broadband Oscillators, Chirped-pulse Amplifiers, Enhancement Cavities, and Selected Applications

The investigation of laser-matter interactions calls for ever shorter pulses as new effects can thus be explored. With few-cycle laser pulses, the phase of the electric field oscillations becomes important for many applications. This book presents ultrafast laser sources that provide few-cycle pulses with controlled evolution of the electric field. Firstly, a technique for phase-stabilizing ultra-broadband oscillators is discussed. Further, the realization of a phase-stabilized chirped-pulse amplifier is described. Frequency conversion of intense laser pulses by high-order harmonic generation is a common way of producing coherent light in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) spectral region. Here, high-harmonic generation from solid surfaces under grazing incidence instead from a gas target is studied as higher efficiencies are expected in this configuration. Another approach to increasing the efficiency of high-harmonic generation is the placing of the gas target in an enhancement resonator. Further, the high repetition rate of the XUV pulses enables their use for high-precision optical frequency metrology with the frequency comb technique.