Generation of intense, carrier-envelope phase-locked few-cycle laser pulses through filamentation

Femtosecond Filamentation in Air

“…1.15. Pulse self shortening by filamentation in argon gas cells (according to Hauri et al [31, 52]) flat phase front and an excellent beam quality [31]. Fig.…”

“…Very recently, the possibility to generate isolated nearly single cycle pulse by filamentation in noble gases has been demonstrated both theoretically [16] and experimentally [31], a result that might impact several domains related to high-field physics. Fig.…”

“…Couairon et al [18], by measuring cross-correlation traces between a pulse at the end of a filament and a non filamented pulse from the same laser (λ = 800 nm, duration 120 fs), report a temporal compression ratio of 10 for the self-guided pulse. Hauri et al showed a pulse shortening down to nearly one optical cycle by filamentation of a 1 mJ, 42 fs, 800 nm laser pulse in a low pressure argon gas cell [31].…”

“…Filaments in fused silica play an important role in the formation of buried guiding structures, and find applications in the writing of optical elements in general. f) Filamentation is accompanied by a self-shortening of the pulse duration, a process which can lead to isolated single cycle optical pulses in an adequate gas pressure gradient [16,17,31]. g) At large powers, multiple filaments are usually obtained, a process potentially interesting for applications since the multiple filamentation patterns can be controlled under certain conditions.…”

Ultrashort pulse generation in the mid-IR

“…This compression technique has been introduced approximately 10 years ago in the near-IR at the ubiquitous wavelength of 800 nm [225] and led to routine generation of high 680 energy few-cycle pulses [226,227,228]. In this case the spectrum is typically broadened due to filamentary propagation in gases and post-compressed by a chirped mirror based compressor [226].…”