Divided-pulse nonlinear compression in a multipass cell
Henning Stark, Christian Grebing, Joachim Buldt, Arno Klenke, Jens Limpert
Abstract
Abstract The pulse-energy and peak-power limitations of a gas-filled multipass cell (MPC) for nonlinear pulse compression are surpassed by applying a burst of four temporally separated pulses instead of a single one. The burst is generated by two birefringent crystals and contains <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">J</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of energy per pulse replica. It is then spectrally broadened in an Argon-filled MPC and recombined into a single pulse by a second set of birefringent crystals. The combined pulse is compressed by chirped mirrors to a pulse duration of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>32</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">f</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">s</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> and a pulse energy of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>3.4</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">J</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> . An excellent passive stability and a high system efficiency of <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mo>></mml:mo> </mml:math> 90% are reached. Using the 4-pulse burst, the overall output energy supported by the MPC is doubled in comparison to single-pulse operation.