Compression of intense ultrashort laser pulses in a gas-filled planar waveguide

Chen, Jianfang; Suda, Akira; Takahashi, Eiji J.; Nurhuda, Muhammad; Midorikawa, Katsumi

doi:10.1364/ol.33.002992

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…It was proposed recently that planar hollow waveguides can allow generation of few cycle pulses with much higher energies [7]. In the first experimental demonstration of this principle Chen et al generated pulses of 12 fs duration with 2 mJ energy [8].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Small-scale self focusing causes the amplification of noise in the beam and deterioration of the spatial mode. At sufficiently high input energy the beam can even break into filaments [8]. For nonlinear propagation in a planar waveguide, since any mode other than the fundamental in the guided direction is strongly attenuated, one expects small scale self focusing to act only in the free direction.…”

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confidence: 99%

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High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

et al. 2009

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International audienceWe demonstrate compression of high-energy ultrashort laser pulses by nonlinear propagation inside gas-filled planar hollow waveguides. We adjust the input beam size along the nonguided dimension of the planar waveguide to restrain the intensity below photoionization, while the relatively long range guided propagation yields significant self-phase modulation and spectral broadening. We compare the compression in different noble gases and obtain 13.6 fs duration with output pulse energy of 8.1 mJ in argon and 11.5 fs duration with 7.6 mJ energy in krypton. The broadened spectra at the output of the waveguide are uniform over more than 70% of the total pulse energy. Shorter duration could be obtained at the expense of the introduction of spatial structure in the beam (and eventual formation of filaments) resulting from small-scale self-focusing in the nonguided direction

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High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

et al. 2009

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“…By use of gas-filled planar hollow waveguides for post-compression, the pulse energy can easily be up-scaled by increasing the beam size in one spatial direction, while keeping the intensity inside the waveguide at levels benefiting efficient self-phase modulation, but limiting ionization. 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].…”

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confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2014

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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.

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“…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%

“…This methods are limited to sub-milijoule level due to material damage or intensity clamping. In order to increase the energy throughput, pressure gradients, 7 planar hollow waveguides 8,9 and tapered waveguides 10 were proposed. Yet, the waveguide still imposes a limit on the aperture and thus the power of the compressed pulse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear Pulse Compression

Paschotta¹

Field Guide to Optical Fiber Technology

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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 ...

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Compression of intense ultrashort laser pulses in a gas-filled planar waveguide

Cited by 26 publications

References 8 publications

High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

High-energy ultrashort laser pulse compression in hollow planar waveguides

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

Nonlinear Pulse Compression

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