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Half-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared from a two-color laser-induced filament

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Abstract

Four-wave mixing (FWM) of femtosecond near-infrared laser pulses and its second harmonic in the filamentation regime is shown to give rise to ultrashort field waveforms in the mid-infrared with pulse widths as short as a half of the field cycle and produce ultrabroadband supercontinuum spectra stretching from the mid-IR to the terahertz region. Generation of 7-fs pulses centered at 4.35 μm is demonstrated by a two-color filamentation experiment, where the 25-fs, 800-nm fundamental-wavelength output of a Ti: Sapphire laser is mixed with its second harmonic. The spectral and temporal properties of the mid-IR waveforms, as well as their emission pattern, are consistent with the FWM scenario of frequency conversion generalized to include the Kerr effect and ionization-induced refractive-index modulation.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project nos.13-02-01465, 13-02-92115, and 14-02-00784) and the Welch Foundation (Grant No. A-1801). Numerical work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 14-12-00772). The research of A.A.V. is also supported by the Dynasty Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, International Laser Center, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119992, Moscow, Russia

    Alexander A. Voronin & Aleksei Zheltikov

  2. Russian Quantum Center, Novaya 100, 143025, Skolkovo, Moscow Region, Russia

    Alexander A. Voronin & Aleksei Zheltikov

  3. Laser Research Center for Molecular Science, Institute for Molecular Science, 38 Nishigonaka, Myodaiji, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan

    Yutaka Nomura, Hideto Shirai & Takao Fuji

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4242, USA

    Aleksei Zheltikov

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  1. Alexander A. Voronin
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  2. Yutaka Nomura
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  3. Hideto Shirai
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  4. Takao Fuji
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  5. Aleksei Zheltikov
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Correspondence to Aleksei Zheltikov.

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Voronin, A.A., Nomura, Y., Shirai, H. et al. Half-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared from a two-color laser-induced filament. Appl. Phys. B 117, 611–619 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-014-5874-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-014-5874-2

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