Sub-2-Cycle, Terawatt Pulses via Double-Stage Multi-Pass Cell Compression of an Yb Laser

@misc{koltalo2026sub2cycle,
  title = {{Sub-2-Cycle, Terawatt Pulses via Double-Stage Multi-Pass Cell Compression of an Yb Laser}},
  author = {Victor Koltalo and Jaismeen Kaur and Louis Daniault and Antoine Cavagna and Mickael Allemand and Florent Pallas and Antoine Courjaud and Emilien Gontier and Cédric Sire and François Sylla and Rodrigo Lopez-Martens},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.04989},
  eprint = {2609.04989},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04989},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Sub-2-Cycle, Terawatt Pulses via Double-Stage Multi-Pass Cell Compression of an Yb Laser
AU  - Victor Koltalo
AU  - Jaismeen Kaur
AU  - Louis Daniault
AU  - Antoine Cavagna
AU  - Mickael Allemand
AU  - Florent Pallas
AU  - Antoine Courjaud
AU  - Emilien Gontier
AU  - Cédric Sire
AU  - François Sylla
AU  - Rodrigo Lopez-Martens
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.04989
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04989
AB  - We report a terawatt-class, sub-2-cycle post-compressed Yb-based laser system operating at kHz repetition rate. 18 mJ, 400 fs pulses delivered at 1 kHz by a commercial Yb:YAG laser are spectrally broadened and temporally compressed in a double-stage multi-pass cell setup featuring an argon-filled Herriott-type cell followed by a helium-filled array-type cell, achieving an overall compression factor of 65. The resulting compressed pulses are measured to have 6.2 fs duration (1.8 optical cycles at 1030 nm) and 12.5 mJ energy, corresponding to 1.4 TW effective peak power. To the best of our knowledge, this constitutes the highest peak power reported to date for a few-cycle, kHz-repetition-rate, post-compressed Yb laser system. Focused intensity measurements yield a normalized vector potential of a0 = 3.0, confirming the applicability of this light source for laser wakefield acceleration.
ER  -