Two-stage nonlinear compression of high-power femtosecond laser pulses
Vladislav Ginzburg, Ivan Yakovlev, Aleksandr Zuev, A.P. Korobeynikova, Аnton Kochetkov, Alexey Kuzmin, Sergey Mironov, A. A. Shaykin, Ilya Shaikin, Е. А. Хазанов
Abstract
Abstract Two-stage compression of laser pulses with a power of 250 TW is experimentally realised by broadening their spectrum during self-phase modulation in fused silica and subsequent dispersion compensation upon reflection from chirping mirrors. A five-fold decrease in the duration is demonstrated, from 75 to 15 fs, with a B -integral value of about 5 at each stage. It is possible to avoid small-scale self-focusing due to self-filtering of the laser beam during free propagation in vacuum. With optimal parameters of the dispersive mirror, the pulse can be compressed to a duration of less than 5 fs.