Terawatt-level three-stage pulse compression for all-attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple, stable three-stage pulse compression method using helium to generate multi-millijoule, near-single-cycle laser pulses suitable for attosecond spectroscopy, demonstrating its effectiveness and scalability.

Contribution

A novel three-stage post-compression scheme in a non-guided geometry using helium, achieving high-energy, ultra-short pulses with high stability for attosecond applications.

Findings

Generated 3.7 fs, multi-mJ pulses with high stability.

Demonstrated two-color attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy.

Scalable approach to multi-terawatt power levels.

Abstract

The generation of terawatt (TW) near-single-cycle laser pulses is of high interest for applications including attosecond science. Here we demonstrate a three-stage post-compression scheme in a non-guided geometry using He as the nonlinear medium, resulting in the generation of multi-mJ pulses with a duration of 3.7 fs. Key features of this approach are its simplicity, robustness and high stability, making it ideally suited for highly demanding applications such as attosecond-pump attosecond-probe spectroscopy (APAPS). This is demonstrated by performing two-color APAPS in Ar and Ne, where both simultaneous and sequential two-photon absorption are observed. Our approach is scalable to multi-TW powers.