title: Compression of intense ultrashort laser pulses in a gas-filled planar waveguide.
abstract: 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 microm 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.
authors.affiliation: RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, Japan.
authors.forename: Jianfang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Suda
authors.forename: Eiji J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nurhuda
authors.forename: Katsumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Midorikawa