Advances in the generation, amplification, control, and measurement of femtosecond laser pulses has had tremendous impact on many facets of science, technology, medicine and national security.
Our group is active in the state-of-the-art development of the optical “tools” needed for studying strong-field atomic physics and laser sources that will enable various applications.
Seen right is an Argon-filled hollow core glass capillary.
Spectral broadening due to self-phase modulation followed by dispersion compensation using a piece of glass with negative group delay dispersion [1] result in the compression of mid-IR pulses down to the few-cycle regime.
[1] Bruno. E. Schmidt et al, 'Compression of laser pulses to sub two optical cycles with bulk material' Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 121109 (2010)