Numerical investigation of the nonlinear spectral broadening aiming at a few-cycle regime for 10 ps level Nd-doped lasers

We present a cascaded nonlinear spectral broadening scheme for Nd-doped lasers,featuring with long pulse duration and high average power.This scheme is based on two multi-pass cells(MPCs)and one multiple-plate supercontinuum generation(MPSG),and the numerical investigation is driven by a home-made Nd-doped fiber laser with 12 ps pulse duration,50 kHz repetition rate and 100 W average power.The MPC-based first two stages allow us to broaden the pulse spectrum to 4 nm and 43 nm respectively,and subsequently,the MPSG-based third stage allows us to reach 235 nm spectral bandwidth.This broadened spectrum can support a Fourier-transfer-limited pulse duration of 9.8 fs,which is shorter than three optical cycles.To the best of our knowledge,it is the first time to demonstrate the possibility of few-cycle pulses generation based on the 10 ps level Nd-doped lasers.Such few-cycle and high average power laser sources should be attractive and prospective,benefiting from the characteristics of structure compact,low-cost and flexibility.

Variation of electron density in spectral broadening process in solid thin plates at 400 nm

The generation of continuous spectrum centered at 400 nm from solid thin plates is demonstrated in this work.A continuum covering 365 nm to 445 nm is obtained when 125-µJ frequency-doubled Ti:sapphire laser pulses are applied to six thin fused silica plates at 1-kHz repetition rate.The generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equation simplified for forward propagation is solved numerically,the spectral broadening with the experimental parameters is simulated,and good agreement between simulated result and experimental measurement is achieved.The variation of electron density in the thin plate and the advantage of a low electron density in the spectral broadening process are discussed.