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Abstract

The generation of high harmonic radiation (HHG) in rare gases using ultrashort infrared laser pulses is a well proven method to produce attosecond light pulses, thus opening the door to direct investigation of dynamics on attosecond timescales, such as the electronic motion in atoms. This diploma-thesis reports on the construction and start up of the first stage of a new experiment that will combine attosecond light pulses from HHG with a so called ”reaction microscope“, to perform pump-probe measurements with attosecond resolution on atoms and molecules. An innovative, versatile vacuum chamber housing all necessary optics, a gas target for HHG and a spectrometer setup for XUV-characterisation have been designed and successfully put into operation. The harmonics are generated using 800 nm Ti:Sapphire laser pulses produced by a commercially available Ti:Sa-amplifier system with a single pulse energy of 0.7 mJ and a duration of approximately 25 fs. A further compression to 6 fs is planned. The influence of important experimental parameters such as target pressure and focal position have been studied and the HHG-signal optimized. First examinations of the harmonics produced in Argon and Neon exhibit a promising yield of coherent soft-X-ray radiation and confirm our setup.