Nonlinear compression toward high-energy single-cycle pulses by cascaded focus and compression.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35921417.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abo1945 and PMC identifier 9348793.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The advancement of contemporary ultrafast science requires reliable sources to provide high-energy few-cycle light pulses. Through experiments and simulations, we demonstrate an arrangement of pulse postcompression, referred to as cascaded focus and compression (CASCADE), for generating millijoule-level, single-cycle pulses in a compact fashion. CASCADE is realized by a series of foci in matter, whereas pulse compression is provided immediately after each focus to maintain a high efficiency of spectral broadening. By implementing four stages of CASCADE in argon cells, we achieve 50-fold compression of millijoule-level pulses at 1030 nanometers from 157 to 3.1 femtoseconds, with an output pulse energy of 0.98 millijoules and a transmission efficiency of 73%. When driving high harmonic generation, these single-cycle pulses enable the creation of a carrier-envelope phase-dependent extreme ultraviolet continuum with energies extending up to 180 electron volts, providing isolated attosecond pulses at the output.