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 […]