Abstract ........................................................ i
Zusammenfassung ............................................... iii
Contents ........................................................ v
1 Introduction ................................................. 1
1.1 Outline of this Thesis .................................. 5
2 Generation of High Harmonics from Solids ...................... 7
2.1 Relativistic Laser Solid Interactions ................... 7
2.1.1 Relativistic Laser Pulses ........................ 7
2.1.2 Properties of Laser generated Solid Density
Plasmas ......................................... 10
2.2 Harmonic Generation from Solid Surfaces ................ 13
2.2.1 Harmonics in the Relativistic Regime ............ 14
2.2.2 Coherent Wake Emission .......................... 20
3 Laser Systems ............................................... 27
3.1 ATLAS Upgrade .......................................... 30
3.1.1 Laser Setup ..................................... 30
3.1.2 Operating Parameters ............................ 35
3.2 LWS 10 ................................................. 38
3.2.1 Laser Setup ..................................... 38
3.2.2 Operating Parameters ............................ 41
4 Temporal Characterization of Surface Harmonics .............. 45
4.1 Experimental Setup ..................................... 46
4.2 Methods for Temporal Characterization .................. 48
4.2.1 The XUV Autocorrelation ......................... 48
4.2.2 Temporal Coherence Measurements ................. 53
4.3 Summary ................................................ 62
5 SHHG with High Contrast Pulses .............................. 65
5.1 Experimental Setup ..................................... 66
5.2 The High Contrast Plasma Mirror ........................ 67
5.2.1 Spatial Filtering at Relativistic
Intensities ..................................... 68
5.2.2 Second Harmonic Generation ...................... 73
5.3 Characterization of Relativist ic Harmonics ............ 76
5.3.1 Spectral Measurements ........................... 77
5.3.2 Divergence of Harmonics ......................... 80
5.3.3 Influences of Target Roughness .................. 87
5.4 Summary ................................................ 91
6 Surface Harmonic Generation with LWS10 ...................... 93
6.1 Experimental Setup ..................................... 94
6.2 Surface Harmonics from a sub-l0fs Driver Laser ......... 96
6.2.1 Spectral Measurements ........................... 96
6.2.2 Polarization Dependence ........................ 104
6.3 Summary ............................................... 109
7 Conclusions and Outlook .................................... 111
A The Plasma Mirror ........................................... 115
B XUV Spectrometers .......................................... 119
B.l The Acton VM-502 ...................................... 119
B.2 The McPherson 248/100G ................................ 121
B.3 The RAL Flat Field Spectrometer ....................... 124
B.4 The Transmission Spectrometer ......................... 126
Bibliography .................................................. 129
Publications .................................................. 145
Acknowlegements ............................................... 149
| 
