High-harmonic generation at 250 MHz with photon energies exceeding 100 eV

Ultrafast spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet demands for ever-higher pulse repetition rates and photon energies. Here, we drive cavity-enhanced high-order harmonic generation (HHG) at a repetition rate of 250 MHz, with 30 fs pulses and an average power of 10 kW. Employing an optimized cavity geometry and a high-pressure gas target, we couple out nanowatt-level harmonics at photon energies around 100 eV. This constitutes an improvement of more than two orders of magnitude over previous megahertz-repetition-rate HHG experiments and paves the way toward high-photon-energy frequency-comb spectroscopy and toward pump-probe photoelectron microscopy and spectroscopy at unprecedented repetition rates. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America