Abstract

Off-axial beam dynamics of ultrashort laser pulses in a filament enable a radical energy-throughput improvement for filamentation-assisted pulse compression. We identify regimes where a weakly diverging wave, produced on the trailing edge of the pulse, catches up with a strongly diverging component, arising in the central part of the pulse, allowing sub-100-fs millijoule infrared laser pulses to be compressed to 20--25-fs pulse widths with energy throughputs in excess of 70%. Theoretical predictions have been verified by experimental results on filamentation-assisted compression of 70-fs, 1.5-\ensuremath{\mu}m laser pulses in high-pressure argon.

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