Effect of Group Delay Dispersion on Femtosecond Pulse Self-shortening in Kerr Media: Investigation of Femtosecond Pulse Self-shortening Phenomenon Based on the Transient Regime of Multiple Filamentation in Kerr Media with Different Group Delay Dispersion
Abstract
We present the results of the investigation of the effect of material dispersion on a novel femtosecond pulse self-shortening mechanism based on the transient regime of multiple filamentation in samples with Kerr nonlinearity. This regime occurs at rather high B-integral values for the pulse passing through the sample, so that multiple filamentation in the trailing part causes strong on-axis intensity losses due to diffraction and refraction that allows far-field spatial filtering of the pulse front edge unaffected by the multiple filamentation. Self-shortening of a 72 fs transform-limited pulse to 23 fs, 32 fs and 30 fs was observed in a 1-mm-thick fused silica plate at intensity of 2.9 TW/cm2 , a 3-mm-thick fused silica plate at intensity of 1.1 TW/cm2 and a 5-mm-thick LiF plate at intensity of 2.1 TW/cm2 , respectively, without the use of additional dispersive elements. Experimental results obtained in this article show that the duration of self-shorted pulses increases with increasing group delay dispersion in the material.
Keywords: multiple filamentation, pulse self-shortening
References
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