Spatio-temporal characterization of few-cycle pulses obtained by filamentation

Zaïr, A.; Guandalini, A.; Schapper, F.; Holler, Mirko; Biegert, J.; Gallmann, L.; Couairon, Arnaud; Michel, F. C.; Mysyrowicz, A.; Keller, U.

doi:10.1364/oe.15.005394

Cited by 122 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Filamentation [6,7,8], resulting from the dynamic balance between Kerr self-focusing and defocusing on laser-induced plasma, is now recognized as an efficient way to produce such ultrashort pulses [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. Moreover, filament-based experiments do not need fine alignment as is the case of capillary-based setups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual-color co-filamentation in Argon

Béjot¹,

Kasparian²,

Wolf³

2008

Opt. Express

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Abstract:We investigate both experimentally and theoretically the mechanisms driving the co-filamentation of two ultrashort laser pulses at 800 and 400 nm in Argon. The cross-Kerr lens and cross-phase modulation between the two filaments of different colors bridging both the continuum spectra and the plasma channels induced by the individual pulses. This dual-color filamentation also results in the simultaneous generation of two few-cycle pulses at both 800 and 400 nm, providing a potential way to generate attosecond pulses. 5394-5404, (2007). 11. S.A Trushin, K. Kosma, W. Fuss, and E. Schmid. Sub-10-fs supercontinuum radiation generated by filamentation of few-cycle 800 nm pulses in argon. Opt. Lett. 32, 2432Lett. 32, -2434Lett. 32, , (2007. 12. X. Chen, X. Li, J. Liu, P. Wei, X. Ge, R. Li, and Z. Xu. Generation of 5 fs, 0.7 mJ pulses at 1 KHz through cascade filamentation. Opt. Lett. 32, 2402Lett. 32, -2404Lett. 32, , (2007. 13. T. Fuji and T. Suzuki. Generation of sub-two-cycle mid-infrared pulses by four-wave mixing through filamentation in air. Opt. Lett. 32, 3330-3332, (2007 Rev. 175, 256-266, (1968

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual-color co-filamentation in Argon

Béjot¹,

Kasparian²,

Wolf³

2008

Opt. Express

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“…A solution to this problem is nonlinear propagation in gaseous media in capillaries [1] or free-space (filamentation) [2,3] and subsequent compression with chirped mirrors [4]. These techniques can reduce pulse durations from the typical 30 fs at 800 nm to below two-cycles, but, depending on implementation, efficiencies and pulse durations across the output beam may vary [5]. A lesser-known method to compress transform-limited pulses is based on group-velocity mismatch and fast amplitude modulation during three-wavemixing in a nonlinear crystal [6].…”

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confidence: 99%

Self-compression to sub-3-cycle duration of mid-infrared optical pulses in dielectrics

Hemmer¹,

Baudisch²,

Thai³

et al. 2013

Opt. Express

118

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The generation of few-cycle pulses with controlled waveforms in the mid-infrared spectral region is a longstanding challenge but is expected, to enable a new generation of high-field physics experiments, uncovering intricate physical phenomena. Successful generation of such optical pulses is limited by the tremendous spectral width -exceeding 1000 nm -required to withstand fewcycle pulses in the mid-IR correlated with the need to tightly control the spectral phase over such a broad bandwidth. Here, we present the first demonstration of sub-3 cycle optical pulses at 3.1 m central wavelength using for the first time self-compression in the anomalous dispersion regime in bulk material. The pulses emerging from this compact and efficient self-compression setup could be focused to intensities exceeding 10 14 W/cm 2 , a suitable range for high field physics experiments. Our experimental findings are corroborated by numerical simulations using a 3D nonlinear propagation code, therefore providing theoretical insight on the processes involved.Intense few-cycle pulses are difficult to obtain directly from a laser system due to limitations in amplification bandwidth, spectral reshaping and dispersion management. A solution to this problem is nonlinear propagation in gaseous media in capillaries [1] or free-space (filamentation) [2,3] and subsequent compression with chirped mirrors [4]. These techniques can reduce pulse durations from the typical 30 fs at 800 nm to below two-cycles, but, depending on implementation, efficiencies and pulse durations across the output beam may vary [5]. A lesser-known method to compress transform-limited pulses is based on group-velocity mismatch and fast amplitude modulation during three-wavemixing in a nonlinear crystal [6]. The technique was demonstrated for Nd:YAG wavelength and allowed compression from 10 ps duration to 310 fs while doubling the input frequency [7]. Self-compression to the few-cycle regime, i.e. without the need for dispersion compensation, was predicted [8] and achieved at 800 nm and 1500 nm wavelengths [9], but is limited in pulse energy due to rapid and chaotic pulse splitting [10,11].The current upsurge in activity to generate intense fewcycle pulses in the mid-IR motivates revisiting nonlinear propagation and pulse compression in those regimes. A limitation for applying the above-mentioned techniques is the typically insufficient pulse energy from mid-IR laser systems, which makes using gaseous media for nonlinear propagation challenging. The combination of low pulse energy and propagation in the anomalous dispersion regime is however suited to investigate self-compression in bulk media due to the much higher nonlinearities.In this Letter, we demonstrate stable and efficient selfcompression of mid-IR pulses in bulk material via filamentation in the anomalous dispersion regime. The spectro-temporal properties of the pulses resulting from this highly nonlinear interaction have been investigated and revealed durations as short as 3 optical cycles with energy throughpu...

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“…Since about 2004, many workgroups started investigating the use of femtosecond filamentation for pulse compression [8,55,56,57,58,59]. Rarely, even self-compression of the laser pulse in the filament without any further compression device could be measured [60].…”

Section: Optimization Of the Filamentmentioning

confidence: 99%