A larger harmonic cutoff with a higher harmonic yield is a necessary requirement for producing intense ultrashort extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and X-ray sources. In this paper, we present a potential method to improve the harmonic cutoff and harmonic yield from the superposition of initial states in the He atom driven by the low-intensity homogeneous and inhomogeneous combined field. The results can be separated into two parts, that is, (i) the extension of harmonic cutoff via the optimization of three-color homogeneous and inhomogeneous field (covering the carrier envelope phase, delay time, intensity ratio, and inhomogeneous effect); and (ii) the enhancement of harmonic yield via the superposition of ground state and excited state as the initial state. Consequently, a water window harmonic plateau with an intensity enhancement of six orders of magnitude can be obtained. Moreover, the harmonic plateau is contributed by a single harmonic emission peak. Finally, through the Fourier transformation of some selected harmonics on the spectral continuum, a number of sub-50 as water window attosecond pulses with the intensity enhancement of six orders of magnitude can be obtained.

The waveform control in the improvements of high-order harmonic generation (HHG) spectra and attosecond pulse signals driven by the two-color and three-color combined fields has been theoretically investigated. (a) The results show that by properly controlling the [Formula: see text]–2[Formula: see text] two-color laser beam (including the modulations of chirps, carrier envelope phases and delay time), either the harmonic cutoff can be extended, showing a water window spectral continuum, or the selective enhancement of the single-order and two-order harmonics can be found. Further, with the introduction of a third controlling field, the efficiency of spectral continuum can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude compared with that from the two-color field. Moreover, the enhancement of HHG is not very sensitive to the frequency of the third field (i.e., the frequency of the third field is chosen to be 3[Formula: see text], 4[Formula: see text] and 6[Formula: see text]). Thus, some water window attosecond pulses with the durations of 60 as can be obtained. (b) Furthermore, the harmonic cutoff can be further extended when using a half-cycle controlling pulse or introducing the inhomogeneous effect of the laser field. Moreover, the efficiency of HHG can be further improved when the initial state is prepared as the superposition state of the ground state and some excited state of He atom. Consequently, a much broader spectral continuum with an intensity enhancement of another two orders of magnitude can be found. Finally, through the Fourier transformation of some spectral continuum, the intense water window attosecond pulses with the durations of 60 as can be produced.

A few-cycle mid-infrared (MIR) laser is demonstrated via nonlinear self-compression in solid thin plates. In this novel solution, the anomalous material dispersion in the MIR band and the chirp induced by self-phase modulation are mutually compensated, which can achieve self-compression. Finally, with the 4 µm laser injection with 4.8 mJ/155 fs and few-cycle pulses with 3.44 mJ, 29.4 fs are generated with a high efficiency of 71.7%, and the system maintains very good spectral stability in 10 days. Compared with other post-compression methods, this self-compression technique has the advantages of high efficiency and robust and large energy expansion scale, which can be further extended to MIR lasers with other wavelengths and higher peak power.