Post-Compression of 9.2-µm Terawatt Laser Pulses to Femtoseconds

Contemporary CO 2 laser systems are capable to delivering picosecond pulses of the multi-terawatt peak power. Further pulse compression a few cycles is possible using post-compression in bulk materials with negative group velocity dispersion (GVD). We have experimentally demonstrated long-wave infrared (9.2 μm) 150-GW power from 1.85 ps less than 500 fs combination two optical significantly different ratios nonlinear refractive index GVD coefficient. Such allows for optimization mechanism and promises viable path scaling powers levels.