High harmonic generation in VUV via passive enhancement of near infrared femtosecond pulses

We generate a VUV frequency comb centered at 159 nm as the 5th harmonic of Ti:S femto-second pulses by a passive enhancement using an external cavity. Average power up to 1.5 uW is measured by a solar-blind phototube. Stable generation about 10 minutes is obtained by active locking of the Ti:S frequencies to the enhancement cavity. Frequency tunability of our Ti:S comb teeth is also verified, which enables us to continuously sweep its frequency with more than twice a free spectral range. Those features reported here are indispensable to precision spectroscopy of unexplored atomic transitions in the VUV region.