Clean hundred-µJ-level sub-6-fs blue pulses generated with helium-assisted solid thin plates

Abstract

In this work, 85 µJ, 5.5 fs pulses spanning 350–500 nm with 96% energy concentrated on the main pulse are generated by pulse compression using a helium-assisted, two-stage solid thin plate apparatus. To the best of our knowledge, these are the highest energy sub-6 fs blue pulses obtained to date. Furthermore, during the spectral broadening process, we observe that solid thin plates are much more easily damaged by blue pulses in a vacuum than in a gas-filled environment at the same field intensity. Helium, with the highest ionization energy and extremely low material dispersion, is adopted to create a gas-filled environment. Thus, the damage to solid thin plates is eliminated, and high-energy, clean pulses can be obtained with only two commercially available chirped mirrors in a chamber. Furthermore, the excellent output power stability of 0.39% root mean square (rms) fluctuations over 1 h is maintained. We believe that few-cycle blue pulses at the hundred-µJ level can open the door to numerous new ultrafast and strong-field applications in this spectral region.