Temporal Contrast of Tunable Ultrashort Pulses Generated in the Near Infrared
Résumé
A laser source delivering ultrashort pulses (50-100 fs) tunable from 820 nm to 1200 nm has been recently developed. It is based on the filtering of a continuum in the Fourier plane of a zero dispersion line without any phase compensator. In the manuscript, we investigate how the temporal contrast from the pump is transferred to the tunable ultra-short pulses. We demonstrate that in addition to the wide tunability, this method allows to enhance the temporal contrast by at least two orders of magnitude. This enhancement at relativement long time is efficient for the complete tunable range but it depends strongly on the spectral bandwidth of each pulse. We also show that the filter profile has a weak impact on the temporal contrast at long time (few ps). Hence, the spectral filtering can be achieved directly in a stretcher (or a compressor) with hard cuts. This new approach can be of great interest for laser-matter interaction experiments in the strong field when it is combined with optical parametric amplifiers.
Domaines
Optique / photonique
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