High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

Aktürk, Selçuk; Arnold, Cord L.; Zhou, Bing; Mysyrowicz, A.

doi:10.1364/ol.34.001462

Cited by 33 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Also, eliminating the onset of ionization becomes challenging as designs are scaled to higher pulse energies, although progress is being made with planar waveguides [6,7]. In filamentationbased schemes the complex filament structures generated at high intensities make exploring parameter spaces challenging both experimentally and theoretically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-energy laser-pulse self-compression in short gas-filled fibers

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine the spatio-temporal compression of energetic femtosecond laser pules within short gas filled fibers. The study is undertaken using an advanced nonlinear pulse propagation model based on a multimode generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation that has been modified to include plasma effects. Plasma defocusing and linear propagation effects are shown to be the dominant processes within a highly dynamical mechanism that enables 100 fs pulses to be compressed into the fewcycle regime after <50 mm of propagation. Once the mechanism has been introduced, parameter spaces are explored and compressor designs suitable for performing high-field experiments in-situ are presented. We finish by showing how these designs may be extended to novel wavelengths and driving pulses delivered by state of the art high repetition rate lasers.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-energy laser-pulse self-compression in short gas-filled fibers

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the first experimental realization it was recognized that modulational instability due to one-dimensional, small-scale selffocusing along the unguided waveguide direction could result in strong deterioration of the transverse beam profile and in the extreme to break-up of the beam into several filaments [20]. Shortly after, some of the authors of this publication showed that by carefully controlling experimental parameters, such as gas pressure and waveguide length, a balance between spectral broadening and beam deterioration can be achieved and demonstrated compressed pulses at the 10 mJ level with good focusability [21,22]. Furthermore, a theoretical model describing a stability regime for energy up-scaling of the planar hollow waveguide compression scheme was introduced [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Compression of TW class laser pulses in a planar hollow waveguide for applications in strong-field physics

et al. 2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We demonstrate pulse post-compression of a TW class chirped pulse amplification laser employing a gas-filled planar hollow waveguide. A waveguide throughput of 80% is achieved for 50 mJ input pulse energy. Good focusability is found and after compression with chirped mirrors a pulse duration of sub-15 fs is measured in the beam center. Whereas a total energy efficiency of ≈70% should be achievable, our post-compressor currently delivers 20 mJ output pulse energy (≈40% efficiency), mostly limited by apertures of chirped mirrors and vacuum windows. The viability of the planar hollow waveguide compression scheme for applications in strong-field physics is demonstrated by generating high-order harmonics in a pulsed Ar gas cell.

show abstract

“…52 Because the input laser beam is confined only in the lateral direction perpendicular to the waveguide plane, thus enlarging the mode area, few cycle pulses with much higher energies can be generated. [8][9][10] In the former scheme spatial beam quality still remains a problem. A summary of the most important laser sources delivering intense few-cycle pulses in the NIR is listed in table 2.1.…”

Section: Filamentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, in a frame of reference moving at the velocity SF , the delayed pump pulses with the group velocities 1 and 2 will travel towards 9 12 fs / 2 mJ Chirped mirrors Akturk et al (2009) 8 11.5 fs / 7.6 mJ Chirped mirrors Chen et al (2011) 10 9.4 fs / 9.1 mJ Chirped mirrors each other (see Fig. 2.5).…”

Section: Nonlinear Pulse Compressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Nonlinear Pulse Compression

Paschotta¹

Field Guide to Optical Fiber Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this thesis I investigate two methods for generating ultrashort laser pulses in spectral regions which are ordinarily difficult to achieve by the existing techniques. These pulses are especially attractive in the study of ultrafast (few femtosecond) atomic and molecular dynamics.The first involves Optical Parametric Amplification (OPA) mediated by four-wave-mixing in gas and supports the generation of ultrashort pulses in the Near-InfraRed (NIR) to the Mid-InfraRed (MIR) spectral region. By combining pulses at a centre wavelength of 800 nm and their second harmonic in an argon-filled hollow-core fibre, we demonstrate near-infrared pulses, peaked at 1.4 µm, with 5 µJ energy and 45 fs duration at the fibre output. The four-wave-mixing process involved in the OPA is expected to lead to carrier-envelope phase stable pulses which is of great importance for applications in extreme nonlinear optics. These NIR to MIR pulses can be used directly for nonlinear light-matter interactions making use of its long-wavelength characteristics.The second method allows the compression of intense femtosecond pulses in the ultraviolet (UV) region by sum-frequency mixing two bandwidth limited NIR pulses in a noncollinear phasematching geometry under particular conditions of group-velocity mismatch. Specifically, the crystal has to be chosen such that the group velocities of the NIR pump pulses, 1 and 2 , and of the sum-frequency generated pulse, SF , meet the following condition: 1 < SF < 2 . In case of strong energy exchange and an appropriate pre-delay between the pump waves, the leading edge of the faster pump pulse and the trailing edge of the slower one are depleted. As a consequence the temporal overlap region of the pump pulses remains narrow, resulting in the shortening of the upconverted pulse. The noncollinear beam geometry allows the control of the relative group velocities while maintaining the phasematching condition. To ensure parallel wavefronts inside the crystal and the generation of untilted sum-frequency pulses, precompensation of the NIR pulse-front tilts is essential. I show that these pulse-front tilts can be achieved using a very compact setup based on i transmission gratings and a more complex setup based on prisms combined with telescopes. UV pulses as short as 32 fs (25 fs) have been generated by noncollinear nonlinear pulse compression in a type II phasematching BBO crystal, starting with NIR pulses of 74 fs (46 fs) duration. This is of interest, because there is no crystal that can be used for nonlinear pulse compression at wavelengths near 800 nm in a collinear geometry. Compared to state-of-the-art compression techniques based on self-phase modulation, pulse compression by sum-frequency generation is free of aperture limitation, and thus scalable in energy. Such femtosecond pulses in the visible and in the ultraviolet are very desirable for studying ultrafast dynamics of a variety of (bio)molecular systems.ii ResumenEn esta tesis he investigado dos métodos para generar pulsos láser ultracortos ...

show abstract

High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

Cited by 33 publications

References 13 publications

High-energy laser-pulse self-compression in short gas-filled fibers

High-energy laser-pulse self-compression in short gas-filled fibers

Compression of TW class laser pulses in a planar hollow waveguide for applications in strong-field physics

Nonlinear Pulse Compression

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About