SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE OPTICAL AMPLIFICATION OF ULTRASHORT LIGHT PULSES BEYOND THE LIMIT OF THE SPECTRAL GAIN BAND

摘要

A system for the optical amplification of high-energy ultrashort light pulses, includes: an oscillator that can emit light pulses of sub-picosecond duration τ₀, a pre-compensator, and a solid optical amplifier that can amplify the chirped light pulses. The pre-compensator has a negative group velocity dispersion, the pre-compensator being capable of generating negatively chirped light pulses, and the optical amplifier has a positive group velocity dispersion, the optical amplifier being disposed such as to receive and amplify the negatively chirped light pulses. The optical amplifier is configured such that the light pulses can induce a broadening of the spectral gain band Δν by self-phase modulation, such as to generate amplified, time-compressed light pulses of duration τ₃, which is shorter than the duration τ=1/Δν of the bandwidth limitation of the optical amplifier.