Generation of EUV radiation by plasmonic field enhancement using nano-structured bowties and funnel-waveguides

Abstract

Recent experimental data of high-order harmonic generation (HHG), obtained by use of the plasmonic field enhancement of nanostructure bowties and funnel-waveguides, are presented. Emphasis is laid on reproduction of previous experimental results and also elucidation of the fundamental limitations associated with the nanostructure thermal damage, small laser-gas interaction volume, and atomic line emission in the plasmon-driven HHG process. In addition, the dominance of coherent harmonics is quantitatively verified by implementing a two-beam interference experiment using a pair of funnel-waveguides. This study proves that funnel-waveguides are a superior plasmonic device capable of providing not only high thermal immunity but also sufficient atom emitters to produce practically usable extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) radiation in a reproducible manner.