A dispersion-engineered multi-pass cell for single-stage post compression of an Ytterbium laser

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel dispersion-engineered multi-pass cell that enables single-stage post-compression of Ytterbium laser pulses from 150 fs to sub-20 fs, overcoming previous limitations of saturation and pulse break-up.

Contribution

The study presents the first implementation of a dispersion-controlled gas-filled multi-pass cell for effective single-stage post-compression of Yb laser pulses.

Findings

Achieved sub-20 fs pulse duration from 150 fs pulses.

Demonstrated up to 250 μJ pulse energy compression.

Maintained 98% throughput during compression.

Abstract

Post-compression methods for ultrafast laser pulses typically face challenging limitations including saturation effects and temporal pulse break-up when large compression factors and broad bandwidths are targeted. To overcome these limitations, we exploit direct dispersion control in a gas-filled multi-pass cell, enabling for the first time single-stage post-compression of 150 fs pulses and up to 250 uJ pulse energy from an Ytterbium (Yb) fiber laser down to sub-20 fs. Dispersion-engineered dielectric cavity mirrors are used to achieve nonlinear spectral broadening dominated by self-phase-modulation over large compression factors and bandwidths at 98% throughput. Our method opens a route towards single-stage post-compression of Yb lasers into the few-cycle regime.