We demonstrate a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator that generates 130-nJ, 26-fs and 220-nJ, 30-fs pulses at a repetition rate of 11 MHz. The generation of stable broadband, high-energy pulses from an extended-cavity oscillator is achieved by the use of chirped multilayer mirrors to produce a small net positive dispersion over a broad spectral range. The resultant chirped picosecond pulses are compressed by a dispersive delay line that is external to the laser cavity. The demonstrated peak powers, in excess of 5 MW, are to our knowledge the highest ever achieved from a cw-pumped laser and are expected to be scalable to tens of megawatts by an increase in the pump power and (or) a decrease in the repetition rate. The demonstrated source permits micromachining of any materials under relaxed focusing conditions.
Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) based on second-harmonic generation has been demonstrated to be capable of high-fidelity measurement of the electric-field envelope and of the temporal evolution of the instantaneous carrier frequency of 0.1-TW 5-fs pulses without the need for any correction for systematic experimental errors. At a 1-kHz repetition rate, pulse energies of a few microjoules are sufficient for reliable FROG characterization of pulses with durations down to the single-cycle regime. The results obtained reveal that carefully designed hollow-fiber chirped-mirror compressors are able to deliver high-power sub-10-fs pulses with a smooth Gaussianlike leading edge that has an intensity contrast of approximately 10(-2) .
Femtosecond light pulses are important tools for time-resolved spectroscopy and nonlinear optics owing to their ultrashort duration and high peak power, respectively. However, intensities in excess of 1012 W/cm2 have not been demonstrated with these systems, limiting their utility for nonlinear optics. In this contribution we demonstrate that recent innovations in sub-10fs laser technology now allow generating i) sub-10fs optical pulses with a peak power of 1.5 MW and ii) intensities greater than 5 × 1013 W/cm2, a never- before-accessed range at repetition rates of a≈ 100 MHz. This performance is achieved with a compact all-solid-state system and opens up the way towards the investigation and possible exploitation of nonperturbative nonlinear optical processes at repetition rates of around 100 MHz for the first time.
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