Chen Jianfang, Akira Suda, Eiji J. Takahashi, Muhammad Nurhuda, Katsumi Midorikawa
We report on the compression of intense ultrashort laser pulses for the purpose of producing few-cycle optical pulses at the multimillijoule level by using a planar waveguide (PWG). The PWG is composed of two parallel glass slabs separated by a gap of 100 μm and mounted in a gas chamber filled with a noble gas. In comparison with the conventional hollow-fiber-based pulse compression technique, the use of a PWG enables the injection of high-energy ultrashort pulses, because the input laser beam is confined only in the lateral direction perpendicular to the waveguide plane. Using this technique, we demonstrate the generation of 12 fs, 2 mJ laser pulses in an argon-filled PWG. © 2008 Optical Society of America.
RIKEN, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, 2-1 Hirosawa, Japan; Physics Department, Brawijaya University, Malang 65144, Indonesia
