In attosecond and strong-field physics, the acquisition of data in an acceptable time demands the combination of high peak power with high average power. We report a 21 W mid-IR optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) that generates 131 μJ and 97 fs (sub-9-cycle) pulses at a 160 kHz repetition rate and at a center wavelength of 3.25 μm. Pulse-to-pulse stability of the carrier envelope phase (CEP)-stable output is excellent with a 0.33% rms over 288 million pulses (30 min) and compression close to a single optical cycle was achieved through soliton self-compression inside a gas-filled mid-IR antiresonant-guiding photonic crystal fiber. Without any additional compression device, stable generation of 14.5 fs (1.35-optical-cycle) pulses was achieved at an average power of 9.6 W. The resulting peak power of 3.9 GW in combination with the near-single-cycle duration and intrinsic CEP stability makes our OPCPA a key-enabling technology for the next generation of extreme photonics, strong-field attosecond research, and coherent x-ray science.

Although ultraviolet (UV) light is important in many areas of science and technology, there are very few if any lasers capable of delivering wavelength-tunable ultrashort UV pulses at high repetition rates. Here we report the generation of deep UV laser pulses at megahertz repetition rates and microjoule energies by means of dispersive wave (DW) emission from self-compressed solitons in gas-filled single-ring hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (SR-PCF). Pulses from an ytterbium fiber laser ($\sim 300\mathrm{fs}$) are first compressed to $<25\mathrm{fs}$ in a SR-PCF-based nonlinear compression stage and subsequently used to pump a second SR-PCF stage for broadband DW generation in the deep UV. The UV wavelength is tunable by selecting the gas species and the pressure. Through rigorous optimization of the system, in particular employing a large-core fiber filled with light noble gases, we achieve 1 μJ pulse energies in the deep UV, which is more than 10 times higher, at average powers more than four orders of magnitude greater (reaching 1 W) than previously demonstrated, with only 20 μJ pulses from the pump laser.

High-harmonic generation has been driving the development of attosecond science and sources. More recently, high-harmonic generation in solids has been adopted by other communities as a method to study material properties. However, so far high-harmonic generation has only been driven by classical light, despite theoretical proposals to do so with quantum states of light. Here we observe non-perturbative high-harmonic generation in solids driven by a macroscopic quantum state of light, a bright squeezed vacuum, which we generate in a single spatiotemporal mode. The process driven by a bright squeezed vacuum is considerably more efficient in the generation of high harmonics than classical light of the same mean intensity. Due to its broad photon-number distribution, covering states from 0 to 2 × 10¹³ photons per pulse, and strong subcycle electric field fluctuations, a bright squeezed vacuum gives access to free carrier dynamics within a much broader range of peak intensities than accessible with classical light.

Optics InfoBase is the Optical Society's online library for flagship journals, partnered and copublished journals, and recent proceedings from OSA conferences.

Spectral anti-crossings between the fundamental guided mode and core-wall resonances alter the dispersion in hollow-core anti-resonant-reflection photonic crystal fibers. Here we study the effect of this dispersion change on the nonlinear propagation and dynamics of ultrashort pulses. We find that it causes emission of narrow spectral peaks through a combination of four-wave mixing and dispersive wave emission. We further investigate the influence of the anti-crossings on nonlinear pulse propagation and show that their impact can be minimized by adjusting the core-wall thickness in such a way that the anti-crossings lie spectrally distant from the pump wavelength.