Coherent Ultrabroadband XUV Light Source | SIMTRUM Photonics Store

Our High-Harmonic-Generation (HHG) setup consists of a vacuum chamber, all necessary KF vacuum

components (incl. pump) and a fully motorized gas jet target. It generates XUV/Soft X-ray pulses through HHG when a (short) femtosecond laser is focused into the gas target. Moreover, single attosecond pulses can be isolated when NEPAL is combined with SAVANNA and our multilayer mirrors. A flexible access 

allows quick and easy exchange of the gas jet target. The breadboard inside the chamber is isolated 

from environment vibrations to improve the temporal and pointing stability of your experiment. A 

feedthrough for noble gas inlet is included to supply e.g. argon, neon or helium for HHG in the spectral 

photon range of interest. For example, few-cycle (4-5 fs) 800 nm pulses in neon can generate high 

harmonics up to 150 eV (8.3 nm). The final generated high-harmonic spectrum depends on the focused 

laser pulse parameters and the used noble gas based on phase-matching conditions.

Key Product Features:

 High-quality vacuum chamber in KF technology

 Up to 360 µW @ 3 kHz high-harmonic power

 Oil-free turbo-molecular pumping system

 Typical operating pressure: few mbar down to <10-3 mbar. 

    Base pressure <10-7 mbar.

 Backing pressure in target: 100s mbar up to few bar

 Breadboard setup isolated from environment vibrations for 

    improved temporal and pointing stability

 1-50 kHz driver compatible

 ISO and KF access ports and viewports

 Thin Brewster window for minimal chirp and polarization cleaning.

 Gas jet setup for HHG (e.g. attosecond pulse generation). Quick and easy exchange 

    of the gas target. Replacement gas jet targets can be requested.

 Gas jet mounted on a motorized XYZ translation stage

 Gas flow control by a locking valve

 Footprint 45 x 45 cm2

 Ceramic targets for better performance and durability

 Gas recycling possible

                 Left: Inside of NEPAL’s chamber showing the motorized XYZ

                    translation stage and the gas jet setup for HHG. Vacuum

                  feedthroughs are used for the electrical connections and the

                  noble gas supply. Two viewports allow observing the plasma

                    channel in the gas target and in the chamber interior. The

                   HHG stability is enhanced by mechanical decoupling of the

                                       gas jet target from the chamber. 

       (Up to 0.1 µW @ 3 kHz high-harmonic power in neon.)

                       Right: Generated high-harmonic 

                       spectrum in neon. The spectrum 

                       reaches easily beyond the silicon 

                              2p- edge around 100 eV. 

High Harmonic Generation with NEPAL:

The laser beam is focused non-dispersively by a concave mirror into the gas cell filled with noble gas, reaching intensities of 

approximately 1013 - 1014 Wcm-2 (for typical state-of-the-art table-top laser systems), where the HHG process takes place 

with conversion efficiencies of 10-5 - 10-8. NEPAL is compatible with long and short focal lengths including very short

foci (f ≈ 6 cm). An XUV spectrometer can be mounted directly to optimize the high-harmonic-generation process.

Application - Isolated attosecond pulses:

NEPAL can be used to generate isolated attosecond pulses. In combination with SAVANNA, our hollow-core fiber compressor, 

and our in-house XUV/soft X-ray multilayer mirrors, NEPAL can generate isolated attosecond pulses in argon, neon or helium. 

The compressed pulses after SAVANNA allow amplitude gating while the mirrors isolate the HHG cut-off, resulting in single 

isolated attosecond pulses. The choice of noble gas and pressure is based on the spectral region of interest and the mirror center 

energyand bandwidth can be customized based on your experimental (spectral and temporal) requirements.