Photoionization-induced emission of tunable few-cycle mid-IR dispersive waves in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

We propose a scheme for the emission of few-cycle dispersive waves in the mid-infrared using hollow-core photonic crystal fibers filled with noble gas. The underlying mechanism is the formation of a plasma cloud by a self-compressed, sub-cycle pump pulse. The resulting free-electron population modifies the fiber dispersion, allowing phase-matched access to dispersive waves at otherwise inaccessible frequencies, well into the mid-IR. Remarkably, the pulses generated turn out to have durations of the order of two optical cycles. In addition, this ultrafast emission, which occurs even in the absence of a zero dispersion point between pump and mid-IR wavelengths, is tunable over a wide frequency range simply by adjusting the gas pressure. These theoretical results pave the way to a new generation of compact, fiber-based sources of few-cycle mid-IR radiation.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Bright Coherent Ultrahigh Harmonics in the keV X-Ray Regime from Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Lasers
• Phase matching of high harmonic generation in the soft and hard X-ray regions of the spectrum
• Mid-infrared pulse generation via achromatic quasi-phase-matched OPCPA
• Supercontinuum generation of ultrashort laser pulses in air at different central wavelengths
• Energetic mid-IR femtosecond pulse generation by self-defocusing soliton-induced dispersive waves in a bulk quadratic nonlinear crystal

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Hybrid photonic-crystal fiber
• Ultra-broadband supercontinuum generation in gas-filled photonic-crystal fibers: The epsilon-near-zero regime
• Photoionization-induced broadband dispersive wave generated in an Ar-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
• High Conversion Efficiency in Multi-mode Gas-filled Hollow-core Fiber