Engineering high-order harmonic generation through gas confinement at sub-millimeter lengths

Abstract Attosecond light sources based on high-order harmonic generation (HHG) constitute to date the only table-top solution for producing coherent broadband radiation covering the spectral range from the extreme ultraviolet to the soft x-rays. The so-called emission cutoff can be extended towards higher photon energies by increasing the driving wavelength at the expense of conversion efficiency. An alternative route is to overdrive the process by using higher laser intensities, with the challenging requirement of interacting with higher plasma densities over short propagation distances. Here, we address this challenge by exploiting free-space propagation in a differentially pumped glass chip designed for optimal gas confinement over sub-mm lengths. By driving HHG with multicycle pulses at either 800 nm or 1500 nm, we demonstrate a cutoff extension by a factor of two compared to conventional phase matching approaches and surpassing the present record using multicycle fields. Our three-dimensional propagation simulations, in excellent agreement with the experiment, confirm that gas confinement is crucial since efficient phase matching of cutoff harmonics occurs only for short propagation lengths. Additionally, we show that the high photon energy component is not only temporally confined to the leading edge of the driving pulse, but also spatially confined in the near-field to an off-axis contribution due to reshaping of the driving field along propagation inside the medium. Our findings contribute to the fundamental understanding of HHG across different regimes.