Resonance-enhanced high harmonic in meta ions driven by elliptically polarized laser pulses

Resonance enhancement of a single order harmonic has been a main attractive feature in high-harmonic generation from laser ablated plumes of metals. Although it has been extensively investigated experimentally and theoretically, studies so far have focused only on linearly polarized driving fields. In this Letter, we study the dependence of the resonant harmonic yield in tin ions on the driving laser ellipticity. We find that the resonance leads to a less rapid decay of the harmonic yield as a function of driving ellipticity, and it is qualitatively reproduced by quantum mechanical simulations. To the best of our knowledge, our findings provide a new type of evidence for supporting previously proposed mechanisms for enhancement. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America

Automated summary

The study found that resonance results in a less rapid decay of harmonic yield with increasing driving laser ellipticity, and this phenomenon is qualitatively reproduced in quantum mechanical simulations. These findings provide new evidence to support previously proposed mechanisms for enhancement.