title: Generation of intense sub-20-fs vacuum ultraviolet pulses compressed by material dispersion.
abstract: We present our latest results on the generation of ultrashort vacuum UV (VUV) pulses by nonresonant four-wave mixing of chirped broadband pulses generated by filamentation of the fundamental of a Ti:sapphire laser with relatively narrowband pulses at the third harmonic. Positive chirp at the broadband idler yields negatively chirped VUV pulses necessary to compensate for material dispersion of a MgF(2) window in the VUV beam path. Pulse energies exceeding 400 nJ are available for time-resolved experiments. Pulse duration is measured by pump-probe ionization of Xe gas, providing the cross correlation between the fifth harmonic and the fundamental.
authors.affiliation: Max-Born-Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Ultrafast Spectroscopy, Max-Born-Strasse 2a, 12489 Berlin, Germany. beutler@mbi‐berlin.de
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beutler
authors.forename: Masood
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghotbi
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Noack