Generation of bright low-divergence high-order harmonics in a long gas jet

Guided propagation of intense 28 fs laser pulses through a long gas jet made it feasible to produce a bright 27th harmonic from argon with a divergence of 0.5 mrad. This harmonic saturated an x-ray charge-coupled device of an extreme ultraviolet spectrometer in a single laser shot of 5 mJ. The low-divergence harmonic generation resulted from a well-guided pumping laser pulse, achieved by balancing diffraction and plasma defocusing with nonlinear self-focusing, and a large harmonic-generation cross section.

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