Frequency comb laser spectroscopy in the vacuum-ultraviolet region

We demonstrate that the output of a frequency comb laser can be amplified and upconverted to the vacuum ultraviolet (vuv) in a gaseous medium while its phase coherence is maintained to a high degree (< 1 30 of a vuv cycle). The produced vuv pulses are well suited to perform frequency comb spectroscopy with sub-MHz accuracy, which is experimentally verified using a Ramsey-type quantum interference scheme to excite a transition in xenon at 125 nm. The achieved resolution constitutes an improvement of six orders of magnitude compared to previous demonstrations of frequency domain quantum interference in this wavelength range. © 2006 The American Physical Society.