Ultra-stable and versatile high-energy resolution setup for attosecond photoelectron spectroscopy

Abstract

ABSTRACTAttosecond photoelectron spectroscopy has opened up for studying light–matter interaction on ultrafast time scales. It is often performed with interferometric experimental setups that require outstanding stability. We demonstrate and characterize in detail an actively stabilized, versatile, high spectral resolution attosecond beamline based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The active stabilization keeps the interferometer ultra-stable for several hours with an RMS stability of 13 as and a total pump-probe delay scanning range of [Formula: see text] fs. A tunable femtosecond laser source to drive high-order harmonic generation allows for precisely addressing atomic and molecular resonances. Furthermore, the interferometer includes a spectral shaper in 4f-geometry in the probe arm as well as a tunable bandpass filter in the pump arm, which offer additional high flexibility in terms of tunability as well as narrowband or polychromatic probe pulses. We demonstrate the capabilities of the beamline via experiments using several variants of the RABBIT (reconstruction of attosecond beating by two photon transitions) technique. In this setup, the temporal-spectral resolution of photoelectron spectroscopy can reach a new level of accuracy and precision.

Keywords

• Attosecond
• photoionization
• High harmonic generation
• interferometer
• RABBIT
• Density matrix