Design and Calculations of a Broadband Two Color Inline Interferometer

Abstract: High-Order Harmonic generation (HHG) is an alternative and much more compact way of generating x-ray radiation compared to producing it in a synchrotron. In this report a two color inline interferometer is designed to superimpose electrical fields generated by a frequency doubling crystal, for the purpose of reshaping the pulse train generated in the HHG process. The challenges of this design is that the light is composed of very short pulses, hence the light is very broadband. As the light is broadband the interferometer must to some extent be achromatic enough to treat two separate wavelength regimes chromatically whilst treating the entire broadband span of these pulses achromatically. Another challenge is that the interferometer should be constructed so that the temporal offset of the two pulses should be tunable with sub cycle precision. The interferometer has been assembled but only partially tested.