Intense 8-fs pulse generation in the deep ultraviolet.
By use of the recently developed technique of guided-wave frequency conversion, the generation of sub-10-fs light pulses in the UV has been demonstrated for what is believed to be the first time. Cross-phase modulation of the light in a hollow waveguide produced a bandwidth of 16 nm, with a center frequency of 270 nm, at 1 kHz. A simple grating pair was used to compress the pulses to a duration of 8 fs, as measured by self-diffraction frequency-resolved optical gating. In the experiment the compressed energy was greater than 1 muJ , with a peak power of >100 MW ; the technique can be scaled to higher energy. Further improvements should make it possible to generate pulses as short as approximately 3 fs with this technique.
Durfee
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Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, University of Michigan, 2200 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2099, USA.
Backus
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Kapteyn
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Murnane
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