Subterawatt few-cycle mid-infrared pulses from a single filament

A V Mitrofanov,A Pugžlys,S I Mitryukovsky,V Ya Panchenko,A Baltuška,S Ališauskas,D V Meshchankin,E E Serebryannikov,D A Sidorov-Biryukov,A B Fedotov,A M Zheltikov,A A Voronin,V Shumakova

doi:10.1364/optica.3.000299

A V Mitrofanov, A Pugžlys + Show 11 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1364/optica.3.000299

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Journal: Optica	Publication Date: Mar 14, 2016
Citations: 71	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: TU Wien, Russian Quantum Center, Kurchatov Institute

Abstract

Filamentation-assisted pulse compression in the gas phase is shown to enable the generation of subterawatt few-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared (mid-IR). With both spatial modulation instabilities and excessive plasma scattering of the mid-IR beam prevented through a careful choice of gas pressure and input peak power, providing a single-filament regime of pulse propagation, peak powers as high as 0.3 TW are achieved in a truly single-mode, almost diffraction-limited 35 fs output at a central wavelength of 4 μm. Applications in molecular spectroscopy, semiconductor electronics, high-field physics, standoff detection, and innovative x-ray sources are envisaged.

Highlights

Motivated and driven by numerous applications and long-standing challenges in strong-field physics [1,2], molecular spectroscopy [3,4], semiconductor electronics [5], and standoff detection [6], ultrafast optical science is rapidly expanding toward longer wavelengths in quest for technologies enabling the generation of highpeak-power ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared range
Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) has been shown to open new horizons in ultrafast optics in the mid-IR, providing a method whereby sub-100 fs pulses with energies at the level of at least tens of millijoules can be delivered at a central wavelength of about 4 μm as an output of a robust, solid-state compact light source [7]
To satisfy the demand for few-cycle field waveforms in the mid-IR, needed to confront some of the long-standing fundamental challenges at the forefront of ultrafast optical science, the OPCPA output has to be compressed to a few-cycle pulse width with an appropriate pulse compression technology, which should be solid enough to deal with high peak powers

Summary

Introduction

Motivated and driven by numerous applications and long-standing challenges in strong-field physics [1,2], molecular spectroscopy [3,4], semiconductor electronics [5], and standoff detection [6], ultrafast optical science is rapidly expanding toward longer wavelengths in quest for technologies enabling the generation of highpeak-power ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) range. In the near-IR range, laser-induced filamentation is known to provide suitable scenarios of nonlinear field dynamics that enable pulse compression at high levels of peak power [17,18,19].

Results

Conclusion