https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202125511007
Post-Compression of 9.2-µm Terawatt Laser Pulses to Femtoseconds
Accelerator Test Facility, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA
* Corresponding author: igor@bnl.gov
Published online: 18 November 2021
Contemporary CO2 laser systems are capable to delivering picosecond pulses of the multi-terawatt peak power. Further pulse compression to a few cycles is possible using a post-compression in bulk materials with negative group velocity dispersion (GVD). We have experimentally demonstrated the post-compression of a long-wave infrared (9.2 μm) 150-GW peak power pulse from 1.85 ps to less than 500 fs using a combination of two optical materials with significantly different ratios of the nonlinear refractive index to the GVD coefficient. Such combination allows for optimization of the compression mechanism and promises a viable path to scaling peak powers to multi-terawatt levels.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
