29/11-2016: Dane Austin: Numerical high-harmonic generation spectroscopy in substituted benzenes with Python

I have developed a suite of tools in Python to calculate HHG spectra in 
substituted benzenes that are directly comparable to our recent 
experiment. I will discuss some of the things that I've learned, 
covering a mixture of programming and physics.

8/11-2016: Esben Larsen: Prospects of CEP stabilization of 1400 nm, few-cycle pulses in the Red dragon lab.

I will discuss a possible experiment, which may allow us to produce 1400 nm few-cycle pulses in the Red Dragon lab with minimal required work.

David Lloyd: Simplified Calculation for Comparing the Efficiency of High Harmonic Generation Conditions

guest Journal Club/Discussion meeting by:
David Lloyd, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Clarendon Laboratory

High-order harmonics of a femtosecond laser are the source of choice for table-top experiments requiring high coherence and short pulse XUV and SXR light. However there is wide debate within the community centred on the issue of maximising the spectral brightness of the emission. As part of the EPSRC funded grant “Table-top femtosecond X-ray dynamical imaging”, our group in Oxford is investigating ways of optimising the harmonic flux for a given photon energy. In this talk I will present details of a simplified calculation aimed at evaluating the (relative) brightness of the harmonic emission. I will show how the results of our calculations compare to experiment in the case of multi-cycle SWIR driver pulses. Finally, I will comment on the suitability of the calculation for identifying routes toward bright, isolated attosecond pulses from high energy, few cycle driver lasers.

Fig. 1. Figure of merit dependence on spot size and pulse energy, for 42 eV emission in argon.

Allan: DM: Long and Short Wavelength Optical Sources for Attosecon d Science

Attosecond science has the potential to observe and even control electron dynamics in real time, and has until now relied on high harmonic generation driven by mode-locked titanium:sapphire lasers. In this talk I will discuss recent work on developing new sources for attosecond science at longer (1800 nm) and shorter (3 nm) wavelengths.

JC/DM: Sebastian: Enhancing the limits of high harmonic generation

I will give a general overview about the three experiments running at the Red Dragon Lab, which are trying to enhance the limits of HHG. These experiments are: HGG towards the water window by using NIR driving fields combined with high pressure gas targets, the effective generation of VUV using a length tunable gas cell and in a later stage multi-color light fields and the HHG in a liquid jet.

DM: Peng: Phase Matching in High-order Harmonic Generation due to ' Non-Zero of Δk '

NO JC, but Optical Society talk Dimitri Bulatov - Fraunhofer IOSB

Christian S: JC: Optical attosecond pulses and tracking the nonlinear response of bound electrons

Optical attosecond pulses and tracking the nonlinear response of bound electrons

• M. Th. Hassan,
• T. T. Luu,
• A. Moulet,
• O. Raskazovskaya,
• P. Zhokhov,
• M. Garg,
• N. Karpowicz,
• A. M. Zheltikov,
• V. Pervak,
• F. Krausz
• & E. Goulielmakis

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v530/n7588/abs/nature16528.html

Aurelien Ricci: Industrial-grade systems for the generation of reliable secondary sources from laser-plasma interaction

Industrial-grade systems for the generation of reliable secondary sources from laser-plasma interaction.
more info about Aurelien's company: http://www.sourcelab-plasma.com/

Note the unusual date and time: Friday 26th, 10:00am

Ghazal Jabbari: ICD after resonant excitation

Ghazal Jabbari is a visitor from Heidelberg University who will talk about ICD, and specifically, ICD after resonant excitation, and where ICD can be important, or even compete with other processes, such as photodissociation (the system: water-chloride cluster). At the end she will talk a bit about Multiple excitations, and ICD process after them (mostly in rare gas dimers).