Nonlinear pulse compression based on a gas-filled multipass cell

Lavenu, Loïc; Natile, Michele; Guichard, Florent; Zaouter, Yoann; Délen, Xavier; Hanna, Marc; Mottay, Eric; Georges, Patrick

doi:10.1364/ol.43.002252

Cited by 93 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…We first compare the 3D and 1D models for a set of parameters resembling the experimental configuration reported in [8]. The MPC is close to confocal with a mirror radius of curvature of 300 mm, and a cell length of 290 mm filled with xenon at a pressure of one bar.…”

Section: Equivalent Waveguide and 1d Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, multipass cells (MPC) either including a bulk medium [6] or filled with a rare gas [7][8][9] have been used to perform nonlinear temporal compression of femtosecond pulses in various regimes (normal dispersion [6][7][8][9], soliton compression in anomalous dispersion [10]), in a large range of pulses energies (from µJ [6,11] to mJ [7,9]), and output pulse durations (from >100 fs [6] to few cycles [10,12]). In all these demonstrations, it was observed that the MPC essentially acts like a 1D nonlinear object, with negligible impact of the nonlinearity on the spatial properties of the beams.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multipass cells: 1D numerical model and investigation of spatio-spectral couplings at high nonlinearity

et al. 2020

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Multipass cells (MPC) are used nowadays as nonlinear tools to perform spectral broadening and temporal manipulation of laser pulses while maintaining a good spatial quality and spatio-spectral homogeneity. However, intensive 3D nonlinear spatio-temporal simulations are required to fully capture the physics associated to pulse propagation inside these systems. In addition, the limitations of such scheme are still under investigation. In this study, we first establish a 1D model as a useful design tool to predict the temporal and spectral properties of the output pulse for nearly Gaussian beams, in a wide range of cavity configurations and nonlinearity levels. This model allows to drastically reduce the computation time associated to MPC design. The validity of the 1D model is first checked by comparing it to 3D simulations. The results of the 1D model are then compared with experimental data collected from a near concentric gas-filled multipass cell presenting a high level of nonlinearity, enabling the observation of wavebreaking. In a second part, we experimentally characterize the spatio-spectral profile at the output of this experimental setup, both with an imaging spectrometer and with a complete 3D characterization method known as INSIGHT. The results show that gas-filled multipass cells can be used at peak power levels close to the critical power without inducing significant spatio-spectral couplings in intensity or phase.

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Section: Equivalent Waveguide and 1d Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multipass cells: 1D numerical model and investigation of spatio-spectral couplings at high nonlinearity

et al. 2020

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“…This technique can be considered as an extension of multi-plate setups [17][18][19] with a distribution of the nonlinearity over tens of passes in the material instead of few, inducing a better output spatial quality and allowing higher compression factors. Compared to capillaries, this technique provides several additional degrees of freedom in terms of geometry, nonlinear material used (solid [15,20] or gas [21,22]), and spectral phase control through the mirror coatings. The most obvious improvement is that, using commercially available mirrors, the transmission of the cell is above 90% in all reported demonstrations.…”

Section: Rationalementioning

confidence: 99%

High-power two-cycle ultrafast source based on hybrid nonlinear compression

Lavenu¹,

Natile²,

Guichard³

et al. 2019

Opt. Express

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We demonstrate a hybrid dual-stage nonlinear compression scheme, which allows the temporal compression of 330 fs-pulses down to 6.8 fs-pulses, with an overall transmission of 61%. This high transmission is obtained by using a first compression stage based on a gasfilled multipass cell, and a second stage based on a large-core gas-filled capillary. The source output is fully characterized in terms of spectral, temporal, spatial, and short-and long-term stability properties. The system's compactness, stability, and high average power makes it ideally suited to drive high photon flux XUV sources through high harmonic generation. IntroductionFew-cycle laser sources are the subject of intense research efforts worldwide since they allow efficient high-harmonic generation (HHG) and the emission of isolated attosecond pulses. This results in compact and highly coherent radiation sources in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft X-ray ranges, with a rapidly increasing number of scientific and industrial applications such as ultrafast spectroscopy, nanoscale imaging, and attosecond science [1-3]. Laser sources based on titanium-doped sapphire (Ti:Sa) have, for a long time, been almost exclusively used to drive the HHG process and to pioneer attosecond physics. The pulse duration typically available from such lasers is 25 fs, so that a single stage of nonlinear compression in a gas-filled capillary result in few-cycle pulses [4]. Despite extraordinary material properties such as gain bandwidth and thermal conductivity, Ti:Sa systems suffer from the short upper state lifetime, their large quantum defect and the fact that they must be pumped with high brightness green lasers. This limits the efficiency, output average power, and prevents repetition rate scaling to drive strong field physics experiments.Laser physicists have been working on more efficient and power scalable ultrafast sources for strong field physics for over a decade. In particular, optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier systems appear as a particularly promising solution [5,6], since they can deliver extremely short pulses in various wavelength ranges and are less impacted by thermal effects because they are based on a non-resonant nonlinear process. However, in order to obtain good spatial and temporal quality, the energy transfer from the pump to the signal is around 10%, so that the pump laser energy must be scaled accordingly, with stringent requirements in terms of spatial and temporal quality.Currently, the most mature and powerful ultrafast source technology is undoubtedly ytterbium-based systems, with average power levels beyond 1 kW [7-9] and numerous industrial applications. These lasers have been used to drive the HHG process as early as 2009 [10], but the long pulse duration delivered by these sources (300 fs -2 ps) limits their relevance to this application field. Therefore, nonlinear compression setups have been used successfully to reduce the pulse duration and obtain XUV photon flux among the highest ever reported for HHG-based sources [11...

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“…A solid or gas nonlinear medium is inserted inside the cell, allowing easy tuning of the nonlinearity level through the gas pressure or bulk medium thickness, while dispersion properties may be easily tailored through appropriate mirrors coatings. This concept has been used mostly to implement temporal compression in a wide range of pulse energies and durations [13][14][15][16][17]. In the case of experiments that make use of a bulk medium inserted in the MPC the peak power scaling is not limited by the critical power because the pulses exit the nonlinear medium before catastrophic collapse at each pass.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectral compression in a multipass cell

Daher¹,

Guichard²,

Délen³

et al. 2020

Opt. Express

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Starting from a femtosecond ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier, we demonstrate the generation of near Fourier transform-limited high peak power picosecond pulses through spectral compression in a nonlinear solid-state-based multipass cell. Input 260 fs pulses negatively chirped to 2.4 ps are spectrally compressed from 6 nm down to 1.1 nm, with an output energy of 13.5 µJ and near transform-limited pulses of 2.1 ps. A pulse shaper included in the femtosecond source provides some control over the output spectral shape, in particular its symmetry. The spatial quality and spatio-spectral homogeneity are conserved in this process. These results show that the use of multipass cells allows energy scaling of spectral compression setups while maintaining the spatial properties of the laser beam.

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Nonlinear pulse compression based on a gas-filled multipass cell

Cited by 93 publications

References 20 publications

Multipass cells: 1D numerical model and investigation of spatio-spectral couplings at high nonlinearity

Multipass cells: 1D numerical model and investigation of spatio-spectral couplings at high nonlinearity

High-power two-cycle ultrafast source based on hybrid nonlinear compression

Spectral compression in a multipass cell

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