Abstract
AbstractLight beams with helical phase-fronts are known to carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) and provide an additional degree of freedom to beams of coherent light. While OAM beams can be readily derived from Gaussian laser beams with phase plates or gratings, this is far more challenging in the extreme ultra-violet (XUV), especially for the case of high XUV intensity. Here, we theoretically and numerically demonstrate that intense surface harmonics carrying OAM are naturally produced by the intrinsic dynamics of a relativistically intense circularly-polarized Gaussian beam (i.e. non-vortex) interacting with a target at normal incidence. Relativistic surface oscillations convert the laser pulses to intense XUV harmonic radiation via the well-known relativistic oscillating mirror mechanism. We show that the azimuthal and radial dependence of the harmonic generation process converts the spin angular momentum of the laser beam to orbital angular momentum resulting in an intense attosecond pulse (or pulse train) with OAM.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Chemistry
Reference49 articles.
1. Poynting, J. H. The wave motion of a revolving shaft, and a suggestion as to the angular momentum in a beam of circularly polarised light. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A Contain. Pap. Math. Phys. Character 82, 560–567 (1909).
2. Allen, L., Beijersbergen, M. W., Spreeuw, R. J. C. & Woerdman, J. P. Orbital angular momentum of light and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes. Phys. Rev. A 45, 8185–8189 (1992).
3. Padgett, M. & Bowman, R. Tweezers with a twist. Nat. Photon. 5, 343–348 (2011).
4. Maurer, C., Jesacher, A., Bernet, S. & Ritsch-Marte, M. What spatial light modulators can do for optical microscopy. Laser Photon. Rev. 5, 81–101 (2010).
5. Fürhapter, S. et al. Spiral interferometry. Opt. Lett. 30, 1953–1955 (2005).
Cited by
45 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献