Efficient self-compression of ultrashort UV pulses in air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates ultrashort UV pulse generation through soliton self-compression in air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber, achieving significant pulse shortening and highlighting a practical, windowless setup for UV pulse compression.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for self-compressing UV pulses in air-filled hollow-core fiber, avoiding glass windows and enabling efficient, table-top UV pulse compression.

Findings

Achieved pulse compression from 54 fs to ~11 fs

Supported by numerical simulations including Raman and Kerr effects

Setup is highly practical due to use of ambient air and no glass windows

Abstract

We report generation of ultrashort UV pulses by soliton self-compression in kagom\'e-style hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with ambient air. Pump pulses with energy 2.6 uJ and duration 54 fs at 400 nm were compressed temporally by a factor of 5, to a duration of ~11 fs. The experimental results are supported by numerical simulations, showing that both Raman and Kerr effects play a role in the compression dynamics. The convenience of using ambient air, and the absence of glass windows that would distort the compressed pulses, makes the setup highly attractive as the basis of an efficient table-top UV pulse compressor.