Petahertz-scale spectral broadening and few-cycle compression of Yb:KGW laser pulses in a pressurized, gas-filled hollow-core fiber

Abstract

We demonstrate efficient generation of coherent super-octave pulses via a single-stage spectral broadening of a Yb:KGW laser in a single, pressurized, Ne-filled, hollow-core fiber capillary. Emerging pulses spectrally spanning over more than 1 PHz (250–1600 nm) at a dynamic range of ∼60 dB, and an excellent beam quality open the door to combining Yb:KGW lasers with modern light-field synthesis techniques. Compression of a fraction of the generated supercontinuum to intense (8 fs, ∼2.4 cycle, ∼650 µJ) pulses allows convenient use of these novel laser sources in strong-field physics and attosecond science.

Sub-two-cycle intense pulse generation based on two-stage hollow-core fiber compression using an ytterbium amplifier

“…25) Nonlinear propagation in a gas-filled HCF has been widely applied to the pulse compression of Yb lasers. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] The generation of few-cycle pulses based on HCF has been achieved by employing two-stage HCF compression, 26,31) single-stage long (>3 m) HCFs, 29,32,33) or a highly pressurized (27 bar) neon-filled HCF. 34) The two-stage approach is easily implemented in a compact optical table.…”

“…[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] The generation of few-cycle pulses based on HCF has been achieved by employing two-stage HCF compression, 26,31) single-stage long (>3 m) HCFs, 29,32,33) or a highly pressurized (27 bar) neon-filled HCF. 34) The two-stage approach is easily implemented in a compact optical table. However, so far, the two-stage approach has been realized with a low throughput of less than 40%.…”

“…Contrast to a smaller (≦250 μm)-inner-diameter HCF customary chosen in many works, 26,27,31,34) we employ a relatively large inner-core HCF to ensure high throughput of the laser pulses as well as to, more importantly, avoid excess plasma effect that severely deteriorates the stability of output pulses from a HCF. 18) As a consequence, the larger-innercore-diameter HCF does not provide high pulse compression ratio, which is typically more than several dozens in the case with a smaller-inner-core-diameter HCF.…”