Generating ultrashort visible light pulses based on multidimensional solitary states in gas-filled hollow core fiber

Abstract

Multidimensional solitary states (MDSS) are self-sustaining light wave packets confined in multiple dimensions in multimode fibers. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the generation of MDSS, driven by a few hundreds of femtoseconds (fs) of long frequency doubled pulses from a Titanium:Sapphire chirped pulsed amplifier in a nitrous oxide-filled hollow core fiber (HCF). The MDSS output, resulting from intermodal interactions in a Raman-active gas-filled large core diameter HCF, features a broadband, red-shifted spectrum in the visible spectral region with a characteristic negative quadratic spectral phase. Therefore, the output with broadband spectra and negative chirp results in the generation of sub-30 fs pulses upon propagation through glass windows and a spectral filter. Backed with experimental observations and multidimensional simulations, we demonstrate that the sign of the frequency chirp of input pulses influences the spectral broadening in the HCF in the high gas-dispersion regime. We observed that the MDSS red-shifted pulses have a clean spatial profile. Therefore, the experimental requirements on the input beam size and quality to achieve a clean MDSS beam profile at the output of large core HCFs can be relaxed. Hence, this work extends the validation of the MDSS phenomenon toward the ultraviolet-visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus providing an alternate source with a clean spatial beam profile for various applications in the field of ultrafast spectroscopy.