Beyond the single-atom response in isolated attosecond-pulse generation

It is demonstrated that three-dimensional propagation effects essentially influence attosecond-pulse generation by few-cycle, carrier-envelope-phase stabilized laser pulses used in a polarization-gating configuration. The rapidly changing polarization status gives rise to electron trajectories even longer than those observed with linearly polarized light, but the off-axis contributions and the propagation effects can efficiently act as a filter to produce a single attosecond pulse. It is also found that the attosecond beams can have a significant spatial divergence.