Temporal pulse quality of a Yb:YAG burst-mode laser post-compressed in a multi-pass cell

Nonlinear pulse post-compression represents an efficient method for ultrashort, high-quality laser pulse production. The temporal pulse quality is, however, limited by amplitude and phase modulations intrinsic to post-compression. We here characterize in frequency and time domain with high dynamic range individual post-compressed pulses within laser bursts comprising 100-kHz-rate pulse trains. We spectrally broaden 730 fs, 3.2 mJ pulses from a Yb:YAG laser in a gas-filled multi-pass cell and post-compress them to 56 fs. The pulses exhibit a nearly constant energy content of 78% in the main peak over the burst plateau, which is close to the theoretical limit. Our results demonstrate attractive pulse characteristics, making multi-pass post-compressed lasers very applicable for pump-probe spectroscopy at, e.g., free-electron lasers or as efficient drivers for secondary frequency conversion stages. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Automated summary

Nonlinear pulse post-compression is an efficient method for producing ultrashort, high-quality laser pulses, but the temporal pulse quality is limited by amplitude and phase modulations. The study characterizes individual post-compressed pulses with high dynamic range, demonstrating nearly constant energy content in the main peak over the burst plateau. This makes multi-pass post-compressed lasers attractive for pump-probe spectroscopy and secondary frequency conversion stages.