title: Beam delivery and pulse compression to sub-50 fs of a modelocked thin-disk laser in a gas-filled Kagome-type HC-PCF fiber.
abstract: We present two experiments confirming that hypocycloid Kagome-type hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs) are excellent candidates for beam delivery of MW peak powers and pulse compression down to the sub-50 fs regime. We demonstrate temporal pulse compression of a 1030-nm Yb:YAG thin disk laser providing 860 fs, 1.9 µJ pulses at 3.9 MHz. Using a single-pass grating pulse compressor, we obtained a pulse duration of 48 fs (FWHM), a spectral bandwidth of 58 nm, and an average output power of 4.2 W with an overall power efficiency into the final polarized compressed pulse of 56%. The pulse energy was 1.1 µJ. This corresponds to a peak power of more than 10 MW and a compression factor of 18 taking into account the exact temporal pulse profile measured with a SHG FROG. The compressed pulses were close to the transform limit of 44 fs. Moreover, we present transmission of up to 97 µJ pulses at 10.5 ps through 10-cm long fiber, corresponding to more than twice the critical peak power for self-focusing in silica.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. emaury@phys.ethz.ch
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Emaury
authors.forename: Coralie Fourcade
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Dutin
authors.forename: Clara J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Saraceno
authors.forename: Mathis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trant
authors.forename: Oliver H
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Heckl
authors.forename: Yang Y
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Cinia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schriber
authors.forename: Frederic
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gerome
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Südmeyer
authors.forename: Fetah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Benabid
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Keller
mesh_terms: D044962:Data Compression / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005740:Gases / Q000737:chemistry; D007834:Lasers
chemical_list: D005740:Gases