Greater than 50 times compression of 1030 nm Yb:KGW laser pulses to single-cycle duration

Abstract

Generation of octave-spanning spectrum that spans from 570 nm to 1300 nm utilizing 1030 nm 170 fs pulses from a Yb:KGW laser and a two-stage multiple-plate arrangement is demonstrated. 3.21 fs sub-single-cycle pulses are obtained after dispersion compensation. The high compression ratio of more than 50 times is achieved for two scenarios with widely different parameters including high input peak power at 1 kHz repetition rate and modest peak power at a high repetition rate of 100 kHz. The output pulses have good spatial mode quality and exhibit long-term stability. The achieved compression ratio and flexibility are unprecedented in ultrafast pulse compression to single-cycle regime. The experiments demonstrate that the technique of multiple-plate pulse compression is versatile and applicable for a wide range of laser pulse parameters.