Few-optical-cycle laser pulses: from high peak power to frequencytunability

摘要

Recent advances in ultrafast laser technology have led to thengeneration of light pulses comprising few optical cycles employingndifferent compression techniques. In particular, two techniques havenbeen developed, which allow addressing the issues of high peak power ornfrequency tunability in a wide spectral range, namely: the hollow-fiberncompression technique and the optical parametric amplification. Thenpaper analyzes the general scheme of pulse compression and reports onnthe most interesting results obtained using the above-mentionedntechniques. The combination of spectral broadening in a gas-fillednhollow fiber with ultrabroad-band dispersion control, has led to thengeneration of pulses with duration of ~5 fs with peak powers up to 0.11nTW. Using optical parametric amplifiers with different configurationsnsub-15-fs laser pulses have been generated tunable in the visible and innthe near-infrared