Researchers have used a KMLabs Red DragonTM ti:sapphire amplifier to demonstrate a novel measurement of an electron wave packet in neon atoms. Professor Hiromichi Niikura at Waseda Unversity and his colleagues applied the Red DragonTM system to drive high-harmonic generation using both the fundamental 800 nm and the 2nd harmonic at 400nm. This two-color-driven EUV was refocused into a neon gas, and the photoelectrons were measured via Velocity Map Imaging (VMI) to image the six-fold structure of the electron wavefunction in neon. An additional IR beam introduced Stark shifts which could be varied with time delay. The use of both even and odd harmonics along with the IR beam allows the retrieval of both the amplitude and the phase of the wavefunction, and determines the angular momentum components of the electron wavefunction.
This work is enabled by the high pulse contrast and low pedestal of the Red DragonTM amplifier system, which makes it ideal for driving nonlinear processes.
