High-power few-cycle Cr:ZnSe mid-infrared source for attosecond soft x-ray physics
- 10 August 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Optica Publishing Group in Optica
- Vol. 7 (8), 981-988
- https://doi.org/10.1364/optica.393377
Abstract
The development of mid-infrared, high-energy pulses of extremely short pulse duration is of great importance to the strong-field physics community, as it enables extension of the high-harmonic cutoff towards the keV range of photon energies. Here we demonstrate a ${\rm{C}}{{\rm{r}}^{2 +}}:{\rm ZnSe}$ laser amplifier delivering 7 mJ, 100 fs pulses at 1 kHz repetition rate and 2.4 µm central wavelength with excellent energy stability and beam quality. These pulses are post-compressed to 39 fs, 6.2 mJ, and 115 GW peak power in a novel nonlinear compression scheme. The laser system was used to generate coherent soft x-ray radiation up to 0.6 keV covering the entire water window, which is of high importance for bio-relevant applications. The obtained results open a wide range of applications in nonlinear optics, attosecond and strong-field physics, and remote sensing.
Keywords
Funding Information
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (MURI FA9550-16-1-0013)
- Office of Science (DE-FG02-04ER15614)
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