Improving the efficiency of high harmonic generation (HHG) by Ne-admixing into a pure Ar gas medium

Laser-based higher-order harmonic generation has been investigated extensively in the past two decades. The current manuscript deals with the high harmonic generation (HHG) outputs from a gas-filled waveguide when using mixtures of two rare gases (Ar and Ne) as nonlinear media. We find that the efficiency of the HHG process can be optimized by changing the pressure or alternatively the mixing ratio of the two gases. This is attributed to the fact that both of these parameters have an effect on the phase-matching in the waveguide. These observations are especially useful when phase matching in a gas jet is concerned, where the absolute local pressure of the gas media cannot be controlled as readily as in a capillary-based HHG setup.