Intense self-compressed, self-phase-stabilized few-cycle pulses at 2 microm from an optical filament.
Opt Lett
; 32(7): 868-70, 2007 Apr 01.
Article
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| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-17339964
ABSTRACT
We report the compression of intense, carrier-envelope phase stable mid-IR pulses down to few-cycle duration using an optical filament. A filament in xenon gas is formed by using self-phase stabilized 330 microJ 55 fs pulses at 2 microm produced via difference-frequency generation in a Tisapphire-pumped optical parametric amplifier. The ultrabroadband 2 microm carrier-wavelength output is self-compressed below 3 optical cycles and has a 270 microJ pulse energy. The self-locked phase offset of the 2 microm difference-frequency field is preserved after filamentation. This is to our knowledge the first experimental realization of pulse compression in optical filaments at mid-IR wavelengths (lambda>0.8 microm).