A 7-fs Ti:sapphire laser focusable to 5 × 1013 W/cm2

Abstract

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.