Impact of material properties on the spectral broadening process in thin solid media

TL;DR

This study systematically investigates how different solid media affect spectral broadening of high-energy laser pulses, combining experiments and simulations to optimize post-compression techniques.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive experimental and numerical analysis of spectral broadening in fused silica, sapphire, and YAG for high-energy pulses.

Findings

Spectral broadening varies significantly with material properties.

Optimal parameters depend on the nonlinear characteristics of each medium.

Simulations align well with experimental results, guiding future optimization.

Abstract

The post-compression of high peak power laser pulses can efficiently increase the peak intensity on target without the need to build additional amplification stages and enlarge the compressor optics. However, to our best knowledge, the spectral broadening of such pulses with different nonlinear media has not yet been investigated systematically. Here we performed an experimental campaign with mJ-class 25 fs pulses, where the conditions of high energy post-compression were emulated. Fused silica, sapphire, and YAG plates were tested for spectral broadening and compressibility while measuring the spatio-spectral properties of the broadened pulses. We conducted a series of numerical simulations to have deeper insight on the broadening process, to better understand the experimental results and to find optimum parameters for future experiments.