Optimal pulse compression in long hollow fibers

Abstract

The spectral broadening performance of 1 m and 3 m long hollow fibers are compared. The 3 m capillary clearly outperforms the 1 m one in terms of both transmission and achievable spectral broadening. Starting from 1.1 mJ 71 fs pulses at 780 nm, a spectral broadening ratio of 26 was achieved using a single 3 m long argon-filled hollow fiber. After compression the measured pulse duration was 4.5 fs corresponding to a compression ratio of 16 at an energy of 0.42 mJ. Both the pulse duration and the pulse energy were limited by the applied chirped mirrors.