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We present a highly stable, easy-to-use HHG source delivering a record photon flux of >1011 photons/s at 69eV-75eV, being tunable to approx. 100eV which will be used for future photon-hungry applications.

In this contribution, a record-high XUV average power of 12.9 mW in a single harmonic line at 26.5 eV is reported, surpassing previously reported HHG sources by one order of magnitude.

We present a sub-2-cycle laser system combining high average power, pulse energy and repetition rate emitting 5.8-fs pulses with CEP-stable operation that make this system an ideal driver for next-generation attosecond sources.

State-of-the-art fiber-laser systems can deliver femtosecond pulses at average powers beyond the kilowatt level and multi-mJ pulse energies by employing advanced large-mode-area fiber designs, chirped-pulse amplification, and the coherent combination of parallel fiber amplifiers. By using sophisticated coherent phase control, one or even several output ports can be modulated at virtually arbitrary power levels and switching speeds. In addition, an all-fiber setup for GHz-burst generation is described allowing to access an even wider range of laser parameters. The combination of all these approaches together with the robustness, efficiency, and excellent beam quality inherent to fiber-laser technology has the potential to strongly improve existing materials-processing applications.

High harmonic generation (HHG) enables coherent extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) radiation with ultra-short pulse duration in a table-top setup. This has already enabled a plethora of applications. Nearly all of these applications would benefit from a high photon flux to increase the signal-to-noise ratio and decrease measurement times. In addition, shortest pulses are desired to investigate fastest dynamics in fields as diverse as physics, biology, chemistry and material sciences. In this work, the up-to-date most powerful table-top XUV source with 12.9 ± 3.9 mW in a single harmonic line at 26.5 eV is demonstrated via HHG of a frequency-doubled and post-compressed fibre laser. At the same time the spectrum supports a Fourier-limited pulse duration of sub-6 fs in the XUV, which allows accessing ultrafast dynamics with an order of magnitude higher photon flux than previously demonstrated. This concept will greatly advance and facilitate applications of XUV radiation in science and technology and enable photon-hungry ultrafast studies.

We present a sub-2 cycle laser system combining high average power, pulse energy and repetition rate with CEP-stable operation making this system an ideal driver for next-generation attosecond sources. The system is based on a fiber-chirped pulse amplification system incorporating coherent combination of 8 amplifier channels. The latter emits 300fs pulses, which are post-compressed down to the few-cycle regime in a two-stage multi-pass cell (MPC) nonlinear pulse compression. The first multi-pass cell is based on standard dielectric mirrors and achieves 1.7mJ

Intense, ultrafast laser sources with an emission wavelength beyond the well-established near-IR are important tools for exploiting the wavelength scaling laws of strong-field, light-matter interactions. In particular, such laser systems enable high photon energy cut-off HHG up to, and even beyond, the water window thus enabling a plethora of subsequent experiments. Ultrafast thulium-doped fiber laser systems (providing a broad amplification bandwidth in the 2 μm wavelength region) represent a promising, average-power scalable laser concept in this regard. These lasers already deliver ~100 fs pulses with multi-GW peak power at hundreds of kHz repetition rate. In this work, we show that combining ultrafast thulium-doped fiber CPA systems with hollow-core fiber based nonlinear pulse compression is a promising approach to realize high photon energy cut-off HHG drivers. Herein, we show that thulium-doped, fiber-laser-driven HHG in argon can access the highly interesting spectral region around 90 eV. Additionally, we show the first water window high-order harmonic generation experiment driven by a high repetition rate, thulium-doped fiber laser system. In this proof of principle demonstration, a photon energy cut-off of approximately 400 eV has been achieved, together with a photon flux

High-harmonic generation (HHG) driven by ultrashort laser pulses is an established process for the generation of coherent extreme ultraviolet (XUV) to soft X-ray radiation, which has found widespread use in various applications [1] . In recent years photon-hungry applications such as coherent diffractive imaging [2] , [3] and applications based on statistical analysis [3] have required more powerful HHG sources, in particular, at high repetition rates. This need can be addressed by using high average power fiber lasers as the HHG drivers [4] . Here, we present a HHG-based XUV source, capable of providing a large photon flux across a wide range between 66 eV and 150 eV. It is driven by a commercial XUV beamline from Active Fiber Systems GmbH consisting of 100-W average power fiber-laser system, delivering up to 300 µJ at 10 11 photons/s in each harmonic between 69 eV and 75 eV (HH57-HH63). All fluxes are given at the generation point, i.e. directly after the source.

We generate multi-mJ, 10fs pulses at average powers beyond 300W by 30-times compression of the output of an Yb-fiber CPA in a 6m long stretched capillary. Further up-scaling of the parameters is in progress.

We report on soft x-ray HHG driven by a thulium-doped fiber laser. It is the first time that a photon energy cut-off ~400 eV has been demonstrated using this highly scalable laser technology.

We present a carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stable Yb-doped fiber laser system delivering 100 µJ few-cycle pulses at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The CEP stability of the system when seeded by a carrier-envelope offset-locked oscillator is 360 mrad, as measured pulse-to-pulse with a stereographic above-threshold ionization (stereo-ATI) phase meter. Slow CEP fluctuations have been suppressed by implementing a feedback loop from the phase meter to the pulse picking acousto-optic modulator. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest CEP stability achieved to date with a fiber-based, high-power few-cycle laser.

We present a CEP-stable Yb:fiber-based laser system delivering 100 μJ few-cycle pulses at the repetition rate of 100 kHz. The reported system is based on a highly scalable in terms of average power and pulse energy concept of a fiber chirped-pulse amplifier (CPA) combined with a hollow-core fiber compression stage. The same concept and similar components are employed by the ELI-ALPS HR1 [1].

The timeframe between the first demonstration of novel laser parameters and the commercial availability of systems delivering those parameters has been shrinking over the recent years. This development makes femtosecond laser systems with unparalleled parameters available to a wide range of applicants. We present the progress in setting up such a FCPA laser system delivering 5mJ pulse energy at 100kHz pulse repetition rate (i.e. 500W of average power) and with pulse durations of 6fs. The system, the so-called HR2 laser, will be implemented at the ELI-ALPS facility in Szeged, Hungary. Furthermore, the laser is optimized to generate output pulses with a stable carrier-envelope-phase (CEP). Since 6fs requires a bandwidth not supplied by Yb-based gain-media, and thus nonlinear compression is necessary, the chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) system itself must deliver a higher energy to compensate for the losses in these nonlinear-compression-stages. Hence, the CPA is operated at 12mJ and 1.2kW delivering sub 300-fs pulses with an almost diffraction limited beam quality. To achieve such a parameter-set, the output of 16 main-amplifier channels is coherently combined using a polarization-based filled-aperture combining scheme. Maintaining the CEP stability of the oscillator throughout the entire system is another key challenge of the project. We finally discuss further power-scaling approaches and possibilities to reduce system size, complexity and, therewith, cost. By using these revolutionary laser systems, even demanding applications such as laser-based particle acceleration or XUV-generation via high-harmonic generation will be able to perform the important step from the laboratory to real-world applications allowing to access repetition rates orders of magnitude higher than before.

The generation of three-cycle multi-millijoule pulses at 318W power is reported by compressing pulses of a Yb-fiber chirped pulse amplifier in a 6 m long stretched flexible hollow fiber. This technique brings high-power lasers to the few-cycle regime. (c) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

We present sub-10-fs, 3.2mJ pulses at 100kHz repetition-rate. This significant upscaling of average power was achieved by using a 6-m-long stretched flexible capillary. Such a technique has the potential to revolutionize few-cycle laser beamlines.

We demonstrate the first ZnGeP2-based, femtosecond OPA system driven directly by a Thulium-based fiber-laser system operated at 100 kHz. The OPA delivers mid-to-long-infrared tunable pulses with idler energies up to 2.2 pJ (23% quantum efficiency).

We present a straightforward route for extreme pulse compression, which relies on moderately driving self-phase modulation (SPM) over an extended propagation distance. This avoids that other detrimental nonlinear mechanisms take over and deteriorate the SPM process. The long propagation is obtained by means of a hollow-core fiber (HCF), up to 6 m in length. This concept is potentially scalable to TW pulse peak powers at kW average power level. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate 33-fold pulse compression of a 1 mJ, 6 kHz, 170 fs Yb laser down to 5.1 fs (1.5 cycles at 1030 nm), by employing a single HCF and subsequent chirped mirrors with an overall transmission of 70%.

Coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) at wavelengths in the extreme ultraviolet range has become an important tool for nanoscale investigations. Employing laser-driven high harmonic sources allows for lab-scale applications such as cancer cell classification and phase-resolved surface studies in reflection geometry. The excellent beam properties support a spatial resolution below the wavelength, i.e., close to the Abbe limit. Unfortunately, the usually low photon flux of HHG sources limits their applicability. Recent advances in ultrafast fiber laser development cumulated in sources delivering average powers approaching the milliwatt level in the extreme ultraviolet. In comparison, a tabletop soft X-ray laser driven by moderate pump energies was recently employed for CDI featuring excellent temporal coherence and extraordinary high flux allowing for single-shot imaging.

High harmonic generation (HHG) of ultrashort laser pulses is a key process for the generation of coherent extreme ultraviolet to soft X-ray radiation, which is routinely employed in a wide variety of applications [1]. Amongst the large variety photoelectron spectroscopy and microscopy particularly demands for high repetition rate and high photon flux sources [2, 3]. As such, fiber laser driven HHG has emerged as a powerful source to provide the highest photon fluxes in combination with unprecedented repetition rates [4].

Thulium-doped fiber lasers are an attractive concept for the generation of mid-infrared (mid-IR) ultrashort pulses around 2 μm wavelength with an unprecedented average power. To date, these systems deliver >150 W of average power and GW-class pulse peak powers with output pulse durations of a few hundreds of fs. As some applications can greatly benefit from even shorter pulse durations, the spectral broadening and subsequent temporal pulse compression can be a key enabling technology for high average power few-cycle laser sources around 2 μm wavelength. In this contribution we demonstrate the nonlinear compression of ultrashort pulses from a high repetition rate Tm-doped fiber laser using a nitrogen gas-filled hollow capillary. Pulses with 4 GW peak power, 46 fs FWHM duration at an average power of 15.4 W have been achieved. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first 2 μm laser delivering intense, GW-pulses with sub 50-fs pulse duration and an average power of >10 W. Based on this result, we discuss the next steps towards a 100 W-level, GW-class few-cycle mid-IR laser.

The combination of high-repetition-rate ultrafast thulium-doped fiber laser systems and gas-based nonlinear pulse compression in waveguides offers promising opportunities for the development of high-performance few-cycle laser sources at 2 μm wavelength. In this Letter, we report on a nonlinear pulse compression stage delivering 252 μJ, sub-50 fs-pulses at 15.4 W of average power. This performance level was enabled by actively mitigating ultrashort pulse propagation effects induced by the presence of water vapor absorptions.

We present the first realization of a femtosecond, mid-to-long-infrared tunable OPA driven by a CPA Tm:fiber-laser with 100 kHz repetition rate. The source provides up to 0.75 μJ energy and supports sub-160 fs pulse durations.

We report on the successful implementation of an adaptive pre-amplification pulse shaping technique in a high-power, coherently combined fiber laser system to achieve sub-300-fs pulse durations at 320 W average power and 3.2 mJ pulse energy. The pulse shaper is utilized to impose a gain flattening mask to increase the spectral width of the amplified pulse by 60%. Simultaneously, it pre-compensates the spectral phase acquired in the multi-stage amplification and subsequent compression including the eight-channel, coherently combined main amplification stage. This result does significantly enhance the performance of the fiber laser system and the subsequent nonlinear compression stages.

High harmonic generation (HHG) enables extreme ultraviolet radiation with table-top setups. Its exceptional properties, such as coherence and (sub)-femtosecond pulse durations, have led to a diversity of applications. Some of these require a high photon flux and megahertz repetition rates, e.g. to avoid space charge effects in photoelectron spectroscopy. To date this has only been achieved with enhancement cavities. Here, we establish a novel route towards powerful HHG sources. By achieving phase-matched HHG of a megahertz fibre laser we generate a broad plateau (25 eV - 40 eV) of strong harmonics, each containing more than $10^{12}$ photons/s, which constitutes an increase by more than one order of magnitude in that wavelength range. The strongest harmonic (H25, 30 eV) has an average power of 143 $\mu$W ($3\cdot10^{13}$ photons/s). This concept will greatly advance and facilitate applications in photoelectron or coincidence spectroscopy, coherent diffractive imaging or (multidimensional) surface science.

The strong-field process of high-harmonic generation is the foundation for generating isolated attosecond pulses, which are the fastest controllable events ever induced. This coherent extreme-ultraviolet radiation has become an indispensable tool for resolving ultrafast motion in atoms and molecules. Despite numerous spectacular developments in the new field of attoscience, the low data-acquisition rates imposed by low-repetition-rate (maximum of 3 kHz) laser systems hamper the advancement of these sophisticated experiments. Consequently, the availability of high-repetition-rate sources will overcome a major obstacle in this young field. Here, we present the first megahertz-level source of extreme-ultraviolet continua with evidence of isolated attosecond pulses using a fibre laser-pumped optical parametric amplifier for high-harmonic generation at 0.6 MHz. This 200-fold increase in repetition rate will enable and promote a vast variety of new applications, such as attosecond-resolution coincidence and photoelectron spectroscopy, or even video-rate acquisition for spatially resolved pump-probe measurements.

Recent advances in table-top high-harmonic sources allowed for coherent diffractive imaging with a record spatial resolution of 13 nm. Additionally, integration times of only a few seconds will enable 3D tomography, imaging of extended objects and element-specific imaging in the near future.

Few-cycle lasers are essential for many research areas such as attosecond physics that promise to address fundamental questions in science and technology. Therefore, further advancements are connected to significant progress in the underlying laser technology. Here, two-stage nonlinear compression of a 660 W femtosecond fiber laser system is utilized to achieve unprecedented average power levels of energetic ultrashort or even few-cycle laser pulses. In a first compression step, 408 W, 320 mu J, 30 fs pulses are achieved, which can be further compressed to 216 W, 170 mu J, 6.3 fs pulses in a second compression stage. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power few-cycle laser system presented so far. It is expected to significantly advance the fields of high harmonic generation and attosecond science. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America

Complementing ultrafast thulium-doped fiber-laser systems with a subsequent nonlinear pulse compression stage can enable unique laser parameters at around 2 μm operation wavelength. Significant pulse shortening and peak power enhancement have been accomplished using a fused silica solid-core fiber. In this fiber a pulse peak power of 24 MW was achieved without catastrophic damage due to self-focusing. As compared to operation in the well-explored 1 μm wavelength region, increasing the emission wavelength to 2 μm has a twofold advantage for nonlinear compression in fused-silica solid-core fibers. This is because, on the one hand the self-focusing limit scales quadratically with the wavelength. On the other hand the dispersion properties of fused silica allow for self-compression of ultrashort pulses beyond 1.3 μm wavelength, which leads to strong spectral broadening from very compact setups without the need for external compression. Using this technique we have generated 1.1 μJpulses with 24 fs FWHM pulse duration (

We report on a fiber laser based XUV source generating record high average powers of up to 2.8 mW (8*1014photons/s) in a single harmonic at 21.6 eV and narrow relative energy bandwidths down to 3*10-3 at 26.6 eV.

In this paper, the average power scalability of components that can be used for intense few-cycle lasers based on nonlinear compression of modern femtosecond solid-state lasers is investigated. The key components of such a setup, namely, the gas-filled waveguides, laser windows, chirped mirrors for pulse compression and low dispersion mirrors for beam collimation, focusing, and beam steering are tested under high-average-power operation using a kilowatt cw laser. We demonstrate the long-term stable transmission of kW-level average power through a hollow capillary and a Kagome-type photonic crystal fiber. In addition, we show that sapphire substrates significantly improve the average power capability of metal-coated mirrors. Ultimately, ultrabroadband dielectric mirrors show negligible heating up to 1 kW of average power. In summary, a technology for scaling of few-cycle lasers up to 1 kW of average power and beyond is presented.

A 100 kHz high harmonic source with record high >10$^{11}$ photons/s in single harmonics between 55-73 eV is presented. The unique capabilities are underlined by using it for coincidence experiments and measurements on magnetic samples.

Thulium-fiber CPA with 200 fs pulses and >1 GW peak power at 50kHz repetition-rate enables nonlinear-compression to sub-30 fs with 140 µJ pulse energy at 2 µm wavelength - a unique laser for high photon-energy HHG.

Efficient HHG with a frequency-doubled fiber laser yields 970 μW in a single narrowband harmonic at 21.6 eV. In argon the energy bandwidth of H11 at 26.6 eV is ΔE/E=2*10-3 due to a window- resonance.

A fiber-chirped-pulse-amplifier system delivers 660 W of average power 260 fs pulses that are used for two-stage nonlinear compression yielding 408 W, 30fs, 320 µJ pulses and 216 W, 6.3 fs, 170 µJ pulses, respectively.

We present the system design and first experimental results of the ELI-ALPS HR1 laser system. At the output CEP-stable few-cycle pulses with 1 mJ energy, >0.1 TW peak power and 100 W of average power will be generated.

Unraveling and controlling chemical dynamics requires techniques to image structural changes of molecules with femtosecond temporal and picometer spatial resolution. Ultrashort-pulse x-ray free-electron lasers have significantly advanced the field by enabling advanced pump-probe schemes. There is an increasing interest in using table-top photon sources enabled by high-harmonic generation of ultrashort-pulse lasers for such studies. We present a novel high-harmonic source driven by a 100 kHz fiber laser system, which delivers 10sup11/supphotons/s in a single 1.3 eV bandwidth harmonic at 68.6 eV. The combination of record-high photon flux and high repetition rate paves the way for time-resolved studies of the dissociation dynamics of inner-shell ionized molecules in a coincidence detection scheme. First coincidence measurements on CHsub3/subI are shown and it is outlined how the anticipated advancement of fiber laser technology and improved sample delivery will, in the next step, allow pump-probe studies of ultrafast molecular dynamics with table-top XUV-photon sources. These table-top sources can provide significantly higher repetition rates than the currently operating free-electron lasers and they offer very high temporal resolution due to the intrinsically small timing jitter between pump and probe pulses.

Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) lasers are essential for the investigation of fundamental physics. Especially high repetition rate, high photon flux sources are of major interest for reducing acquisition times and improving signal to noise ratios in a plethora of applications. Here, an XUV source based on cascaded frequency conversion is presented, which delivers due to the drastic better single atom response for short wavelength drivers, an average output power of (832 +- 204) {\mu}W at 21.7 eV. This is the highest average power produced by any HHG source in this spectral range surpassing precious demonstrations by more than a factor of four. Furthermore, a narrow-band harmonic at 26.6 eV with a relative energy bandwidth of only {\Delta}E/E= 1.8 x 10E-3 has been generated, which is of high interest for high precision spectroscopy experiments., Comment: 4 Pages, 4 Pictures

We present a table-top coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) experiment based on high-order harmonics generated at 18 nm by a high average power femtosecond fiber laser system. The high photon flux, narrow spectral bandwidth and high degree of spatial coherence allow for ultra-high sub-wavelength resolution imaging at a high numerical aperture. Our experiments demonstrate a half-pitch resolution of 13.6 nm, very close to the actual Abbe-limit of 12.4 nm, which is the highest resolution achieved from any table-top XUV or X-ray microscope. In addition, 20.5 nm resolution was achieved with only 3 sec of integration time bringing live diffraction imaging and 3D tomography on the nanoscale one step closer to reality. The current resolution is solely limited by the wavelength and the detector size. Thus, table-top nanoscopes with only a few-nm resolutions are in reach and will find applications in many areas of science and technology., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Sources of long wavelengths few-cycle high repetition rate pulses are becoming increasingly important for a plethora of applications, e.g., in high-field physics. Here, we report on the realization of a tunable optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier at 100 kHz repetition rate. At a central wavelength of 2 μm, the system delivered 33 fs pulses and a 6 W average power corresponding to 60 μJ pulse energy with gigawatt-level peak powers. Idler absorption and its crystal heating is experimentally investigated for a BBO. Strategies for further power scaling to several tens of watts of average power are discussed.

We review the main challenges and give design guidelines for high-peak-power high-average-power fiber-based chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) systems. It is clearly pointed out that the lowest order fiber nonlinearity (NL), namely the self-phase modulation, limits the scalability of high-energy ultrashort pulse fiber amplifiers. Therefore, a distinguished difference arises between the consequences of accumulated nonlinear phase originating from the pulse envelope and initial weak modulations, resulting in a strong recommendation to operate an amplification system as linearly as possible in order to generate high-contrast pulses. Low-NL rare-earth-doped fibers, such as the recently available designs of photonic crystal fibers, are the key element for successful peak power scaling in fiber laser systems. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis and optimization of the extraction characteristics in connection with the accumulated nonlinear phase in such extreme fiber dimensions. Consequently, millijoule pulse energy femtosecond pulses at repetition rates in the 100 kHz range have already been demonstrated experimentally in a Yb-fiber-based CPA system that has even further scaling potential.

Using high average power fiber lasers as drivers for high harmonic generation has evolved into a promising concept for achieving unprecedented high photon flux. Recent achievements will be discussed and underlined by first applications.

We introduce and experimentally validate a pulse picking technique based on a travelling-wave-type acousto-optic modulator (AOM) having the AOM carrier frequency synchronized to the repetition rate of the original pulse train. As a consequence, the phase noise characteristic of the original pulse train is largely preserved, rendering this technique suitable for applications requiring carrier-envelope phase stabilization. In a proof-of-principle experiment, the 1030-nm spectral part of an 74-MHz, carrier-envelope phase stable Ti:sapphire oscillator is amplified and reduced in pulse repetition frequency by a factor of two, maintaining an unprecedentedly low carrier-envelope phase noise spectral density of below 68 mrad. Furthermore, a comparative analysis reveals that the pulse-picking-induced additional amplitude noise is minimized, when the AOM is operated under synchronicity. The proposed scheme is particularly suitable when the down-picked repetition rate is still in the multi-MHz-range, where Pockels cells cannot be applied due to piezoelectric ringing.

This contribution reports on the recent advances in high harmonic generation (HHG) with high power femtosecond fiber lasers at high repetition rates. The capabilities of high power fiber lasers, the challenges of phase matching in the tight-focusing regime and recent experimental results will be discussed. In particular, post compressed pules as short as 30 fs, with ~150 μJ pulse energy at 0.6 MHz repetition rate have been used for efficient HHG into the XUV. Despite the tight focusing phase matching is ensured by providing the target gas with adequately high density. A conversion efficiency in excess of 10-6 at ~30 eV has been achieved in xenon gas. This resulted in more than 100μW of average power (>1013 photons per second), which represents the highest photon flux achieved by any HHG source in this spectral region so far. In addition, further pulse compression yielded few-cycle pulses at high average power that have enabled efficient soft Xray generation in neon and helium. HHG in neon provided more than 3·109 photons/s within a 1% bandwidth at 120 eV and helium allowed for HHG up to the water window spectral region beyond 283 eV. These compact sources provide highest photon flux on a table-top and will enable exciting applications such as nanometer-resolution imaging or coincidence spectroscopy in the near future.

Over the last decade, the performance of femtosecond fiber laser systems has been rapidly improved. However, further improvements might be held back due to different physical limitations such as nonlinearities or optically induced damage. We demonstrate that with the coherent combination of four parallel fiber amplifiers record pulse energies and peak-powers of 5.7 mJ and 22 GW, respectively, could be achieved. These values could be realized with a chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) laser system running at a repetition rate of 40 kHz and delivering a compressed average power of 230 W. A high combination efficiency of 89% was achieved demonstrating the scalability of the combining approach to a larger number of channels.

Nonlinear pulse compression of ultrashort pulses is an established method for reducing the pulse duration and increasing the pulse peak power beyond the intrinsic limits of a given laser architecture. In this proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate nonlinear compression of the pulses emitted by a high-repetition-rate thulium-based fiber CPA system. The initial pulse duration of about 400 fs has been shortened to

We present novel high photon flux XUV and soft x-ray sources based on high harmonic generation (HHG). The sources employ femtosecond fiber lasers, which can be operated at very high (MHz) repetition rate and average power (>100 W). HHG with such lasers results in similar to 10(13) photons s(-1) within a single harmonic line at similar to 40 nm (similar to 30 eV) wavelength, a photon flux comparable to what is typically available at synchrotron beam lines. In addition, resonant enhancement of HHG can result in narrow-band harmonics with high spectral purity-well suited for precision spectroscopy. These novel light sources will enable seminal studies on electronic transitions in highly-charged ions. For example, at the experimental storage ring 2s(1/2)-2p(1/2) transitions in Li-like ions can be excited up to Z= 47 (similar to 100 eV transition energy), which provides unique sensitivity to quantum electro-dynamical effects and nuclear corrections. We estimate fluorescence count rates of the order of tens per second, which would enable studies on short-lived isotopes as well. In combination with the Doppler up-shift available in head-on excitation at future heavy-ion storage rings, such as the high energy storage ring, even multi-keV transitions can potentially be excited. Pump-probe experiments with femtosecond resolution could also be feasible and access the lifetime of short-lived excited states, thus providing novel benchmarks for atomic structure theory.