skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Few-cycle, mJ-level, mid-wave infrared pulses generated via post-compression of a chirped pulse amplifier
Few-cycle pulses were generated by passing a beam from a cryogenically cooled Fe:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier (CPA) at a repetition rate of 400 Hz through a gas-filled hollow core fiber (HCF) followed by dispersion-compensating bulk CaF2. The krypton-filled fiber at 370 kPa yielded 1.14-mJ, 42-fs pulses centered at 4.07 µm, while the oxygen-filled fiber at 310 kPa delivered 0.78-mJ, 39-fs pulses spanning from 3 to 5.5 µm. This work is a step toward a high repetition rate mid-wave infrared driver of isolated attosecond keV x-ray pulses.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2207674
PAR ID:
10610448
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Optica
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Optics Letters
Volume:
49
Issue:
11
ISSN:
0146-9592
Page Range / eLocation ID:
3170
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; (, Optics Letters)
    3.2-mJ, 92-fs pulses centered at 3.1 µm are generated at a 1-kHz repetition rate through a tabletop optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system based on ZnGeP2crystals. Pumped by a 2-µm chirped pulse amplifier with a flat-top beam profile, the amplifier achieves a 16.5% overall efficiency, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the highest efficiency achieved by OPCPA at this wavelength. Harmonics up to the seventh order are observed after focusing the output in the air. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, Optics Letters)
    We demonstrate loss-free generation of 3 mJ, 1 kHz, few-cycle (5 fs at 750 nm central wavelength) double pulses with a pulse peak separation from 10 to 100 fs, using a helium-filled hollow core fiber (HCF) and chirped mirror compressor. Crucial to our scheme are simulation-based modifications to the spectral phase and amplitude of the oscillator seed pulse to eliminate the deleterious effects of self-focusing and nonlinear phase pickup in the chirped pulse amplifier. The shortest pulse separations are enabled by tunable nonlinear pulse splitting in the HCF compressor. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, Optica Publishing Group)
    We describe a nonlinear Er:doped fiber amplification scheme for producing fiber-delivered, 44 fs pulses with 100 kW peak power at arbitrary (0-60 MHz) repetition rate. Subsequent spectral broadening produces 80 THz of bandwidth. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; (, APL Photonics)
    Frequency combs with mode spacing of 10–20 GHz are critical for increasingly important applications such as astronomical spectrograph calibration, high-speed dual-comb spectroscopy, and low-noise microwave generation. While electro-optic modulators and microresonators can provide narrowband comb sources at this repetition rate, a significant remaining challenge is a means to produce pulses with sufficient peak power to initiate nonlinear supercontinuum generation spanning hundreds of terahertz (THz) as required for self-referencing. Here, we provide a simple, robust, and universal solution to this problem using off-the-shelf polarization-maintaining amplification and nonlinear fiber components. This fiber-integrated approach for nonlinear temporal compression and supercontinuum generation is demonstrated with a resonant electro-optic frequency comb at 1550 nm. We show how to readily achieve pulses shorter than 60 fs at a repetition rate of 20 GHz. The same technique can be applied to picosecond pulses at 10 GHz to demonstrate temporal compression by 9× and achieve 50 fs pulses with a peak power of 5.5 kW. These compressed pulses enable flat supercontinuum generation spanning more than 600 nm after propagation through multi-segment dispersion-tailored anomalous-dispersion highly nonlinear fibers or tantala waveguides. The same 10 GHz source can readily achieve an octave-spanning spectrum for self-referencing in dispersion-engineered silicon nitride waveguides. This simple all-fiber approach to nonlinear spectral broadening fills a critical gap for transforming any narrowband 10–20 GHz frequency comb into a broadband spectrum for a wide range of applications that benefit from the high pulse rate and require access to the individual comb modes. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; (, Optics Express)
    A femtosecond chirped pulse amplifier based on cryogenically cooled Fe:ZnSe was demonstrated at 333 Hz—33 times higher than previous results achieved at near-room-temperature. The long upper-state lifetime allows free-running, diode-pumped Er:YAG lasers to be used as pump lasers. 250-fs, 4.59-mJ pulses are produced with a center wavelength of 4.07 µm, which avoids strong atmospheric CO2absorption that cuts on around 4.2 µm. It is therefore possible to operate the laser in ambient air with good beam quality. By focusing the 18-GW beam in air, harmonics up to the ninth order were observed indicating its potential for use in strong-field experimentation. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email