Extreme ultraviolet supercontinua supporting pulse durations of less than one atomic unit of time

Double optical gating of high-harmonic generation was used to obtain supercontinuous spectra in the extreme UV (XUV) region including the water window. The spectra supported a 16 as pulse duration that is below one atomic unit of time (24 as). The dependence of the gated spectra on the carrier-envelope phase of the laser provided evidence that isolated attosecond pulses were generated. In addition, to ensure the temporal coherence of the XUV light, the pulse shape and phase of isolated 107 as XUV pulses using a portion of the spectrum were characterized by attosecond streaking. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America