A novel-high energy pulse compression system: generation of multigigawatt sub-5-fs pulses

Abstract

Powerful techniques for spectral broadening and ultrabroadband dispersion control, which allow the compression of high-energy femtosecond pulses to a duration of a few optical cycles, are presented. Spectral broadening by propagation along hollow-core fused silica fiber filled with atomic and molecular gases is studied under two excitation regimes with high-energy input pulses of 140 fs and 20 fs duration respectively. Conditions for optimum pulse compression are outlined considering the role of self-phase modulation and gas dispersion in the two regimes. With 20 fs input pulses and under optimum compression conditions we demonstrate a pulse shortening down to 4.5 fs with output energy up to 70 μJ using a high-throughput prism-chirped-mirror delay line. These pulses are the shortest generated to date at multigigawatt peak power. PACS: 42.65.Re; 42.65.Vh Ultrashort-pulse lasers are the most important experimental tools for investigating fast-evolving atomic and molecular dynamics in physics, chemistry, and biology. In the last few years, great technological advances have been made in the field of ultrafast pulse generation. New mode-locking techniques such as additive-pulse mode-locking and Kerr-lens mode-locking have been successfully used for femtosecond pulse generation from a wide range of solid-state laser oscillators [1]. Using chirped mirrors [2] for intracavity dispersion control, pulses down to 7.5 fs have been directly generated by a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator [3] and, more recently, 6.5-fs pulses have been obtained using broadband semiconductor saturable absorbers for self-starting [4]. Ti:sapphire amplifiers seeded by femtosecond laser oscillators can now generate pulses of 20–30 fs with gigawatt [5, 6] or terawatt [7–9] peak power at repetition rates in the kHz and 10 Hz regimes, respectively. Ultrashort pulses can also be generated by extracavity compression techniques, in which the pulses are spectrally broadened upon propagation in a suitable nonlinear waveguide and subsequently compressed in a carefully designed optical dispersive delay line. Spectral broadening of laser pulses by self-phase modulation (SPM) in a single-mode optical fiber is a well-established technique: pulses down to 6 fs were obtained in 1987 from 50-fs pulses from a mode-locked dye laser [10]. More recently 13-fs pulses from a cavity-dumped Ti:sapphire laser were compressed to 5 fs with the same technique [11]. However, the use of single-mode fibers limits the pulse energy to a few nanojoules. A powerful pulse compression technique based on spectral broadening in an hollow fiber filled with noble gases has demonstrated the capability of handling highenergy pulses (sub-mJ range) [12]. This technique presents the advantages of a guiding element with a large diameter mode and of a fast nonlinear medium with high threshold for multiphoton ionization. New concepts in the construction of dispersive delay lines have been applied in the development of specially designed chirped mirrors for fine control of cubic and quartic phase dispersion terms over a large spectral bandwidth [3]. The implementation of the hollow-fiber technique using 20-fs seed pulses from a Ti:sapphire system [5] and a high-throughput broadband dispersive delay line consisting of prisms and chirped mirrors has recently permitted the generation of multigigawatt sub-5 fs pulses [13]. In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of compression experiments with high-energy femtosecond pulses performed using gas-filled hollow fibers. Spectral broadenings obtained in different gases are compared for 140-fs and 20-fs input pulses generated by Ti:sapphire laser systems, and the optimum conditions for pulse compression are outlined considering the role of SPM and gas dispersion. A new ultrabroadband prism-chirped-mirror dispersive delay line, characterized by a high throughput and dispersion control up to the fourth order, is described in detail. The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 1 we provide a description of hollow fiber modes and discuss the major advantages of this device compared to optical fibers. Sect. 2 reports on typical spectral broadenings achieved under different excitation conditions. In Sect. 3 we report on the characteristics of the prism-chirped-mirror compressor and discuss the experimental results obtained with 20-fs input pulses. Under optimum compression conditions we show a pulse shortening down to 4.5 fs with output energy up to 70 μJ. These pulses are the