Self-Compression of Ultrahigh-Peak-Power Lasers

Pulse self-compression can offer a more compact and efficient solution for improving the peak power of ultraintense laser pulses. By solving a modified nonlinear Schrodinger equation considering the fifth-order susceptibility, it is found that self-compression occurred even in a normally dispersive medium owing to the negative fifth-order susceptibility inducing a mass of negative frequency chirp. Furthermore, negatively prechirped pulses enabled self-compression at lower intensities, thus preventing damage to the medium. The optimal choices for prechirp, input intensity, and medium length are numerically analyzed. A proof-of-principle experiment confirmed the aforementioned theoretical findings. It is expected that petawatt or even exawatt laser pulses with 25 fs/15 fs transform-limited pulse duration can be self-compressed to approximate to 9.9 fs/7.6 fs in normally dispersive media, such as fused silica glass plate. "By solving a modified nonlinear Schrodinger equation, it is found that self-compression occurred in a normally dispersive medium owing to the negative fifth-order susceptibility and negatively prechirped pulses. Optimal parameters for self-compression are numerically analyzed. A proof-of-principle experiment confirmed the aforementioned theoretical findings. It is expected that ultrahigh-peak-power laser pulses with 25/15 fs duration can be self-compressed to 9.9/7.6 fs." image