Spectral broadening and compression of high-intensity laser pulses in quasi-periodic systems with Kerr nonlinearity

We report the results of theoretical studies and numerical simulations of optical high-power pulse compression systems based on the spectral broadening in a Kerr nonlinear medium with subsequent pulse compression in a dispersive delay line. It is shown that the effective spectral broadening requires suppressing a small-scale instability arising due to self-focusing, which is possible in quasi-periodic systems consisting of a nonlinear medium and optical relay telescopes transmitting images of the laser beam through the system. The numerical calculations have shown the possibility of broadening the spectrum, followed by 15-fold pulse compression until the instability is excited.