All-optical attosecond time domain interferometry

作者：Zhen Yang, Wei Cao, Yunlong Mo, Huiyao Xu, Kang Mi, Pengfei Lan, Qingbin Zhang, Peixiang Lu · 发表于：National Science Review · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1093/nsr/nwaa211 · 被引用次数：20 · 研究领域：Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications、Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies、Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications

Interferometry, a key technique in modern precision measurements, has been used for length measurement in engineering metrology and astronomy. An analogous time-domain interferometric technique would represent a significant complement to spatial domain applications and require the manipulation of interference on extreme time and energy scales. Here, we report an all-optical interferometer using laser-driven high order harmonics as attosecond temporal slits. By controlling the phase of the temporal slits with an external field, a time domain interferometer that preserves both attosecond temporal resolution and hundreds of meV energy resolution is implemented. We apply this exceptional temporal resolution to reconstruct the waveform of an arbitrarily polarized optical pulse, and utilize the provided energy resolution to interrogate the abnormal character of the transition dipole near the Cooper minimum in argon. This novel attosecond interferometry paves the way for high precision measurements in the time-energy domain using all-optical approaches.