Cascaded Nondegenerate Four-Wave Mixing Technique for High-Power Single-Cycle Pulse Synthesis in the Visible and Ultraviolet Ranges

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel cascaded four-wave mixing technique to generate high-power, near-single-cycle pulses in the visible and ultraviolet ranges, enabling simpler pulse synthesis for advanced scientific applications.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates a new method for synthesizing high-power, ultrashort pulses using cascaded four-wave mixing, achieving broad spectra and direct pulse synthesis without complex control.

Findings

Generated coherent spectra spanning over two octaves in bandwidth.

Successfully measured multiple cascaded orders simultaneously.

Achieved near-single-cycle 2.2 fs pulses in the visible-UV range.

Abstract

We present a new technique to synthesize high-power single-cycle pulses in the visible and ultraviolet ranges by coherent superposition of a multiband octave-spanning spectrum obtained by highly-nondegenerate cascaded four-wave mixing of femtosecond pulses in bulk isotropic nonresonant media. The generation of coherent spectra spanning over two octaves in bandwidth is experimentally demonstrated using a thin fused silica slide. Full characterization of the intervening multicolored fields using frequency-resolved optical gating, where multiple cascaded orders have been measured simultaneously for the first time, supports the possibility of direct synthesis of near-single-cycle 2.2 fs visible-UV pulses without recurring to complex amplitude or phase control, which should enable many applications in science and technology.