Single attosecond pulse production with an ellipticity-modulated driving IR pulse

We theoretically study attosecond pulse production via high-harmonic generation using a driving laser pulse with a time-dependent ellipticity. The theoretical approach produces results that agree with our experimental data obtained using 35 fs driving laser pulses and is further used to study the generation of single attosecond pulses with shorter laser pulses. We find an equation for the duration of the temporal window created by the time-varying driving laser polarization in which high-harmonic emission can occur. We formulate the necessary requirements concerning the driving laser field in order to confine the high-harmonic emission in the form of a single attosecond pulse. Indeed, we show that using incident 12 fs laser pulses single attosecond pulses can be produced for certain carrier-envelope phase (CEP) values of the driving pulse. For 6 fs incident laser pulses, single attosecond pulses are produced for all values of the CEP (the intensity of the attosecond pulse still depends on the actual value of the CEP). If implemented with state-of-the-art 5 fs laser pulses, this technique can even lead to the production of sub-100 as pulses. (letter to the editor)