Light amplification by seeded Kerr instability

Abstract

Amplification of femtosecond laser pulses requires a lasing medium or a nonlinear crystal. The chemical properties of the lasing medium or adherence to momentum conservation rules in the nonlinear crystal constrain the frequency and the bandwidth of the amplified pulses. Vampa et al. seeded modulation instability in a laser crystal pumped with femtosecond near-infrared pulses. This provided a method for the high gain amplification of broadband and short laser pulses up to intensities of 1 terawatt per square centimeter. The method avoids constraints related to doping and phase matching and can be expected to be applied to a wide pool of glasses and crystals.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Feb 09, 2018
Source ID
10.1126/science.aaq0053

Entities

People

  • A. Yu. Naumov
  • Giulio Vampa
  • Michael Nesrallah
  • Paul Corkum
  • T J Hammond
  • Thomas Brabec

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • National Research Council Canada
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
  • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
  • University of Ottawa

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy