Phys.org April 26, 2022
An international team of researchers (Germany, Norway) has developed a very compact and highly robust method to compress 1.24 ps pulses to 39 fs by means of only a single spectral broadening stage which neither requires vacuum parts nor custom-made optics. The approach is based on the hybridization of the multiplate continuum and the multipass cell spectral broadening techniques whose combination led to significantly higher spectral broadening factors in bulk material. They used a burst-mode Yb:YAG laser emitting pulses with 80 MW peak power that are enhanced to more than 1 GW after post compression. With only 0.19% rms pulse-to-pulse energy fluctuations, the technique exhibited excellent stability and good beam quality of up to a spectral broadening factor of 30. According to the researchers due to the method’s simplicity, compactness, and scalability, it is highly attractive for turning a picosecond laser into an ultrafast light source that generates pulses of only a few tens of femtoseconds duration…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Overview of single-stage compression factors achieved by bulk-based MPCs and the multiplate continuum technique… Credit: Ultrafast Science, vol. 2022, Article ID 9754919, 10 pages, 2022.Â