Experimental studies of attosecond pulse trains

We present experimental measurements of attosecond pulse trains. The characterization of the pulses uses a spectral interferometry technique that is implemented with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. This allows us to manipulate independently the pump and probe pulses for a wide range of applications. By letting the attosecond pulses pass through metallic films, we can in particular compensate for the intrinsic chirp of the attosecond pulses corresponding to the plateau spectral region, thus getting pulses as short as 170 attoseconds - only 1.2 optical cycles at the central frequency. The measurement technique is also applicable for determination of the group delay of thin XUV-transparent films and relative delay in the photoionization process. Our experimental method is applied to attosecond pulse trains created by 35- and 9-fs laser pulses, and the shortest train observed consists of three or four pulses. Copyright © 2005 by Astro, Ltd