Over the last few decades, the investigation of ultrafast phenomena occurring in atoms, molecules and solid-state systems under a strong-field regime of light-matter interaction has attracted great attention. The increasing request for a suitable optical technology is significantly boosting the development of powerful ultrafast laser sources. In this framework, Optical Parametric Amplification (OPA) is currently becoming a leading solution for applications in high-power ultra-broadband light burst generation. The main advantage provided by the OPA scheme consists of the possibility of exploring spectral ranges that are inaccessible by other laser technologies, as the InfraRed (IR) window. In this paper, we will give an overview on recent progress in the development of high-power few-optical-cycle parametric amplifiers in the near-IR and in the mid-IR spectral domain. In particular, the design of the most advanced OPA implementations is provided, containing a discussion on the key technical aspects. In addition, a review on their application to the study of strong-field ultrafast physical processes is reported.

Chirality is widespread in nature, playing a fundamental role in biochemical processes and in the origin of life itself. The observation of dynamics in chiral molecules is crucial for the understanding and control of the chiral activity of photoexcited states. One of the most promising techniques for the study of photoexcited chiral systems is time-resolved photoelectron circular dichroism (TR-PECD), which offers an intense and sensitive probe for vibronic and geometric molecular structure as well as electronic structures, and their evolution on a femtosecond timescale. However, the nonlocal character of the PECD effect, which is imprinted during the electron scattering off the molecule, makes the interpretation of TR-PECD experiments challenging. In this respect, core photoionization is known to allow site and chemical sensitivity to photelectron spectroscopy. Here we demonstrate that TR-PECD utilizing core-level photoemission enables probing the chiral electronic structure and its relaxation dynamics with atomic site sensitivity. Following UV pumped excitation to a $3s$ Rydberg state, fenchone enantiomers (${\mathrm{C}}_{10}{\mathrm{H}}_{16}\mathrm{O}$) were probed on a femtosecond scale using circularly polarized soft x-ray light pulses provided by the free-electron laser FERMI. C $1s$ binding energy shifts caused by the redistribution of valence electron density in this $3s$-valence-Rydberg excitation allowed us to measure transient PECD chiral responses with an enhanced C atom site selectivity compared to that achievable in the ground state molecule. This chemical-specific, site-specific, and enantiosensitive observation of the electronic structure of a transiently photoexcited chiral molecule is expected to pave the way toward chiral femtochemistry probed by core-level photoemission.

We report on the efficient generation of high-order harmonics in helium gas inside complex glass micro-devices fabricated by femtosecond laser micromachining. By exploiting the three-dimensional capabilities and extreme flexibility of this fabrication technique we developed fluidic micro-structures in a fused-silica substrate that allowed us to achieve accurate control of the gas density inside a micrometer-sized microchannel. As a result, we achieved a broadband spectrum of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation which extends up to 200 eV and we observed a considerable increase in the harmonics generation efficiency if compared with traditional harmonic generation in gas jets. We foresee that the application of femosecond-laser-micromachined glass devices to high-order harmonics generation can be extended to more complex on-chip systems including different functionalities, thus opening the possibility to future miniaturization of XUV and Attosecond beamlines.

We present a robust, three-stage optical parametric amplifier driven by a Ti:Sapphire ultrafast laser system that implements passive carrier-envelope phase stabilization and directly generates five-cycle mid-IR pulses by dispersion compensation. The source is based on potassium titanyl arsenate crystals and exploits intra-pulse difference-frequency seed generation in the mid-IR. This source will be particularly suited for applications in strong-field physics, such as high order harmonic generation and photoelectron spectroscopy.

The development of bright eXtreme UltraViolet (XUV) and soft x-ray sources based on high-order harmonic generation is boosting advances toward understanding the behavior of matter on the attosecond timescale. Here, we report a novel approach for efficient XUV generation consisting of the use of microfluidic integrated systems fabricated by femtosecond laser micromachining of glass. Our microfluidic approach allows one to control and manipulate the gas density on a micrometer scale with unprecedented accuracy and micro-structural flexibility. By propagating ultrashort laser pulses inside the microfluidic devices, we demonstrate high photon fluxes and broadband harmonics spectra, up to 200 eV, from tailored gas media.

We report on the application of femtosecond laser micromachining to the fabrication of complex glass microdevices, for high-order harmonic generation in gas. The three-dimensional capabilities and extreme flexibility of femtosecond laser micromachining allow us to achieve accurate control of gas density inside the micrometer interaction channel. This device gives a considerable increase in harmonics’ generation efficiency if compared with traditional harmonic generation in gas jets. We propose different chip geometries that allow the control of the gas density and driving field intensity inside the interaction channel to achieve quasi phase-matching conditions in the harmonic generation process. We believe that these glass micro-devices will pave the way to future downscaling of high-order harmonic generation beamlines.