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Recent developments in ultrafast laser technology have resulted in novel few-cycle sources in the mid-infrared. Accurately characterizing the time-dependent intensities and electric field waveforms of such laser pulses is essential to their applications in strong-field physics and attosecond pulse generation, but this remains a challenge. Recently, it was shown that tunnel ionization can provide an ultrafast temporal “gate” for characterizing high-energy few-cycle laser waveforms capable of ionizing air. Here, we show that tunneling and multiphoton excitation in a dielectric solid can provide a means to measure lower-energy and longer-wavelength pulses, and we apply the technique to characterize microjoule-level near- and mid-infrared pulses. The method lends itself to both all-optical and on-chip detection of laser waveforms, as well as single-shot detection geometries.
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Millijoule few-cycle pulses from staged compression for strong and high field science
Intense few-cycle laser pulses have a breadth of applications in high energy density science, including particle acceleration and x-ray generation. Multi-amplifier laser system pulses have durations of tens of femtoseconds or longer. To achieve high intensities at the single-cycle limit, a robust and efficient post-compression scheme is required. We demonstrate a staged compression technique using self-phase modulation in thin dielectric media, in which few-cycle pulses can be produced. The few-cycle pulse is then used to generate extreme ultravoilet light via high harmonic generation at strong field intensities and to generate MeV electron beams via laser solid interactions at relativistic intensities.
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- PAR ID:
- 10216821
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optics Express
- Volume:
- 29
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1094-4087; OPEXFF
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 9123
- Size(s):
- Article No. 9123
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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