Optics letters 46(18), 4686 - 4689 (2021). doi:https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.435073
A gas-filled multi-pass cell is employed to post-compress the output of a high average power burst-mode Yb:YAG Innoslab amplifier with 730 fs single pulse duration. While this technique constitutes an attractive approach to reach ultrashort pulse durations, the peak power is typically limited by temporal contrast characteristics which are intrinsic to the post-compression process based on self-phase modulation. With the present setup, we reach a relative energy content in the main compressed peak close to the theoretical limit of up to 78% compared to the full pulse energy including the picosecond background at a compression factor of 13, yielding pulses with 56 fs duration. Moreover, this result is consistently obtained over the entire laser burst and measured at the 100 kHz intra-burst repetition rate. Reliable intra-burst pulse characterization of temporal contrast, spectrum, phase and duration is shown and demonstrates attractive pulse parameters for e.g. pump-probe spectroscopy in combination with Free-Electron Laser pulses.
Published by Soc., Washington, DC