We report self-compression of mid-IR optical pulses to the few-cycle regime in an anti-resonant hollow core fiber filled with ambient air. Transform-limited 120-fs duration input optical pulses with 160 μJ energy are compressed to 29.8 fs (< 3 cycles) with a compression efficiency of 75%, resulting in 2.6 GW peak power few-cycle pulses. In addition, we show that nonlinear compression is maintained when the fiber is coiled, allowing for a compact setup. Finally, we elucidate the dynamics involved in this self-compression setup via numerical simulations and identify the critical role played by Raman shifting in molecular gases and ionization limitations.

High-harmonic upconversion driven by a mid-infrared femtosecond laser can generate coherent soft x-ray beams in a tabletop-scale setup. Here, we report on a compact ytterbium-pumped optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) laser system seeded by an all-fiber front-end and employing periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) nonlinear media operated near the pulse fluence limits of current commercially available PPLN crystals. The OPCPA delivers 3 µm wavelength pulses with 775 µJ energy at 1 kHz repetition rate, with transform-limited 120 fs pulse duration, diffraction-limited beam quality, and ultrahigh 0.33% rms energy stability over >18 h. Using this laser, we generate soft x-ray high harmonics (HHG) in argon gas by focusing into a low-loss, high-pressure gas-filled anti-resonant hollow core fiber (ARHCF), generating coherent light at photon energies up to the argon L-edge (250 eV) and carbon K-edge (284 eV), with high beam quality and ∼1% rms energy stability. This work demonstrates soft x-ray HHG in a high-efficiency guided-wave phase matched geometry, overcoming the high losses inherent to mid-IR propagation in unstructured waveguides, or the short interaction lengths of gas cells or jets. The ARHCF can operate in the long term without damage and with the repetition rate, stability, and robustness required for demanding applications in spectromicroscopy and imaging. Finally, we discuss routes for further optimizing the soft x-ray HHG flux by driving He at higher laser intensities using either the signal (1.5 μm) or idler wavelengths (3 μm).

Ptychography implemented with coherent high-harmonic (HHG) sources enables high-resolution, high-fidelity imaging of nanostructures and biosystems. However, when driven by mid-infrared lasers to generate light at higher photon energies, HHG inherently produces a broadband quasi-continuum, which is less suited for coherent imaging compared with a single harmonic order. Consequently, experiments typically select a narrow bandwidth of ≈1%, leaving most of the HHG photons unused, increasing exposure times. In this work, we demonstrate broadband ptychography utilizing an extreme UV (EUV) continuum centered at 92 eV, with a bandwidth of up to 7.9 eV (a relative bandwidth of ~9%). By focusing the HHG beam to a sub-micrometer spot size to relax the temporal coherence constraints, and utilizing a multi-wavelength ptychographic reconstruction algorithm, we achieve a spatial resolution of 42 nm, which is near the diffraction limit of ~30 nm for our setup. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the broadest spectral bandwidth successfully employed to date for EUV ptychography, with the potential to increase the usable photon flux by up to an order of magnitude relative to previous approaches. In the future, broadband soft X-ray ptychography can be used to image hydrated samples around the carbon K-edge and magnetic textures at the L-edges of transition metals.

We report a compact, cryogenic Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier that delivers >19-mJ energy pulses at 1-kHz with near-TEM00 spatial profile. The excellent power and pointing stabilities are ideal for OPCPA pumping over weeks-long continuous operation.