TY - JOUR

T1 - Ultraviolet supercontinuum generation using a differentially-pumped integrated glass chip

AU - Wanie, Vincent

AU - Barbato, Pasquale

AU - Hahne, Josina

AU - Ryabchuk, Sergey

AU - Wahid, Ammar Bin

AU - Amorim, David

AU - Månsson, Erik P.

AU - Trabattoni, Andrea

AU - Osellame, Roberto

AU - Martínez Vázquez, Rebeca

AU - Calegari, Francesca

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by the European Research Council under the ERC-2014-StG STARLIGHT (Grant No. 637756), the Cluster of Excellence ‘CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter’ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)—EXC 2056—project ID 390715994, the DFG—SFB-925—Project ID 170620586, the Helmoltz-Lund International Graduate School (HELIOS) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Grant Agreement No. 964588 (XPIC). V W acknowledges support from the Partnership for Innovation, Education and Research (PIER) (PIF-2021-03). A T acknowledges support from the Helmholtz association under the Helmholtz Young Investigator Group VH-NG-1603.

PY - 2024/3/7

Y1 - 2024/3/7

N2 - We investigate the generation of ultrabroadband femtosecond ultraviolet (UV) radiation via third-order harmonic generation in highly confined gas media. A dual-stage differential-pumping scheme integrated into a glass microfluidic chip provides an exceptional gas confinement up to several bar and allows the apparatus to be operated under high-vacuum environment. UV pulses are generated both in argon and neon with up to ∼0.8 μJ energy and 0.2% conversion efficiency for spectra that cover the UVB and UVC regions between 200 and 325 nm. Numerical simulations based on the unidirectional pulse propagation equation reveal that ionization plays a critical role for extending the spectral bandwidth of the generated third-harmonic pulse beyond the tripled 800 nm driving laser pulse bandwidth. By delivering UV supercontinua supporting Fourier transform limits below 2 fs, as well as comparable pulse energies with respect to capillary-based techniques that typically provide high spectral tunability but produce narrower bandwidths, our compact device makes a step forward towards the production and application of sub-fs UV pulses for the investigation of electron dynamics in neutral molecules.

AB - We investigate the generation of ultrabroadband femtosecond ultraviolet (UV) radiation via third-order harmonic generation in highly confined gas media. A dual-stage differential-pumping scheme integrated into a glass microfluidic chip provides an exceptional gas confinement up to several bar and allows the apparatus to be operated under high-vacuum environment. UV pulses are generated both in argon and neon with up to ∼0.8 μJ energy and 0.2% conversion efficiency for spectra that cover the UVB and UVC regions between 200 and 325 nm. Numerical simulations based on the unidirectional pulse propagation equation reveal that ionization plays a critical role for extending the spectral bandwidth of the generated third-harmonic pulse beyond the tripled 800 nm driving laser pulse bandwidth. By delivering UV supercontinua supporting Fourier transform limits below 2 fs, as well as comparable pulse energies with respect to capillary-based techniques that typically provide high spectral tunability but produce narrower bandwidths, our compact device makes a step forward towards the production and application of sub-fs UV pulses for the investigation of electron dynamics in neutral molecules.

KW - differential pumping

KW - femtosecond laser micromachining

KW - frequency conversion

KW - third-harmonic generation

KW - ultrafast optics

KW - ultrafast UV spectroscopy

KW - ultraviolet radiation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187229477&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1088/2515-7647/ad2bd3

DO - 10.1088/2515-7647/ad2bd3

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85187229477

VL - 6

JO - JPhys Photonics

JF - JPhys Photonics

IS - 2

M1 - 025005

ER -