Carrier-envelope phase on-chip scanner and control of laser beams
V. Hanuš, Beatrix Fehér, Viktória Csajbók, Péter Sándor, Zsuzsanna Pápa, Judit Budai, Zilong Wang, Pallabi Paul, Adriana Szeghalmi, Péter Dombi
Abstract
Abstract The carrier-envelope phase (CEP) is an important property of few-cycle laser pulses, allowing for light field control of electronic processes during laser-matter interactions. Thus, the measurement and control of CEP is essential for applications of few-cycle lasers. Currently, there is no robust method for measuring the non-trivial spatial CEP distribution of few-cycle laser pulses. Here, we demonstrate a compact on-chip, ambient-air, CEP scanning probe with 0.1 µm 3 resolution based on optical driving of CEP-sensitive ultrafast currents in a metal−dielectric heterostructure. We successfully apply the probe to obtain a 3D map of spatial changes of CEP in the vicinity of an oscillator beam focus with pulses as weak as 1 nJ. We also demonstrate CEP control in the focal volume with a spatial light modulator so that arbitrary spatial CEP sculpting could be realized.