Generation of isolated attosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses employing nanoplasmonic field enhancement: Optimization of coupled ellipsoids

The production of extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation via nanoplasmonic field-enhanced high-harmonic generation (HHG) in gold nanostructures at MHz repetition rates is investigated theoretically in this paper. Analytical and numerical calculations are employed and compared in order to determine the plasmonic fields in gold ellipsoidal nanoparticles. The comparison indicates that numerical calculations can accurately predict the field enhancement and plasmonic decay, but may encounter difficulties when attempting to predict the oscillatory behavior of the plasmonic field. Numerical calculations for coupled symmetric and asymmetric ellipsoids for different carrier-envelope phases (CEPs) of the driving laser field are combined with time-dependent Schrödinger equation simulations to predict the resulting HHG spectra. The studies reveal that the plasmonic field oscillations, which are controlled by the CEP of the driving laser field, play a more important role than the nanostructure configuration in finding the optimal conditions for the generation of isolated attosecond XUV pulses via nanoplasmonic field enhancement.