Intensity-dependent atomic-phase effects in high-order harmonic generation.

The far-field angular distributions of high-order harmonics of a 1054-nm laser, with orders ranging from the lower teens to the upper thirties, have been measured in thin, low-density Ar, Kr, and Xe targets. The 1.25times-diffraction-limited, 1.4-ps-duration, Gaussian laser pulses were focused to intensities ranging from 3 X 10' to 3 X 10' W/cm, using f/70 optics. A gas target localized the gas distribution near the laser focus to a thickness of about 1 mm at pressures as low as 0.3 Torr. The weak focusing geometry and the low gas pressures created experimental conditions for which the harmonics could be thought of as emerging from a plane at the laser focus rather than a three-dimensional volume. The far-field distributions of nearly all of the harmonics exhibit narrow central peaks surrounded by broad wings of about the same angular divergence as the emerging laser beam. The spatial wings are due to an intensity-dependent phase variation among the dipole moments of the individual target atoms. This phase variation gives rise to broad spatial interferences in the scattered light due to the radial and temporal variation of the laser intensity.