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Repetition-rate-independent post-compression to achieve carrier-envelope phase stable few-cycle laser pulses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2025

Barnabás Gilicze*
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Imre Seres
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Zsolt Bengery
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Tamás Bartyik
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Tamás Csizmadia
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Lénárd Gulyás Oldal
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Zsolt Kovács
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Roland Nagymihaly
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Katalin Varjú
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Péter Jójárt
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Ádám Börzsönyi
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary
Zoltán Várallyay
Affiliation:
ELI ALPS, ELI-HU , Non-Profit Ltd., Szeged, Hungary FETI Ltd., Budapest , Hungary
*
Correspondence to: B. Gilicze, ELI ALPS, ELI-HU Non-Profit Ltd., Wolfgang Sandner utca 3, H-6728 Szeged, Hungary. Email: Barnabas.Gilicze@eli-alps.hu

Abstract

The ELI ERIC facility offers international users ultrashort laser sources via the ALPS facility focusing on few-cycle laser drivers for attosecond pulses, particle beams and ultrahigh intensity interactions. The HR1 system supports attosecond high harmonic generation (HHG) and time-resolved spectroscopy at 100 kHz. However, its high repetition rate, while aiding statistical analysis, poses thermal challenges and limits certain applications requiring lower repetition rates. To address this, the HR Alignment laser system was developed for the HHG beamline at the ELI-ALPS facility. This new system delivers sub-6 fs, 1 mJ pulses with a tunable repetition rate (from 10 Hz to 10 kHz) and carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization. It utilizes an ytterbium-doped potassium gadolinium tungstate front-end, multi-pass cell compression, and chirped mirrors. Characterization confirms excellent energy and CEP stability (below 300 mrad), beam quality and temporal contrast, matching the HR1 laser’s performance. This compact, stable system provides high-flux attosecond generation for reaction microscopy enhancing ultrafast research in the ELI-ALPS facility.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with Chinese Laser Press
Figure 0

Figure 1 Schematic layout of the HR Alignment laser system. The drawing includes the separate HR1 laser system, the beam delivery system (light gray boxes with dashed borders) and the gas HHG chamber. Injection points into the beam delivery system indicate the position of the two systems each sharing the same beamline, namely the output of HR1 is farther from the HHG point than that of the HR Alignment system.

Figure 1

Figure 2 Characterization of the output beam spatial quality. (a) M2 measurement, demonstrating near-diffraction-limited performance. (b) Near-field beam profile exhibiting spatial homogeneity.

Figure 2

Figure 3 (a) Measured and (b) retrieved d-scan trace of the output pulses of the HR Alignment laser system. (c) Measured (gray) and retrieved (purple) spectra and spectral phase (blue) and (d) reconstructed temporal shape of the output pulses recorded at different repetition rates. The consistent, overlapping pulse profiles confirm repetition-rate-independent operation.

Figure 3

Figure 4 Third-order autocorrelation trace of the output pulses of HR Alignment between –500 and 500 ps delay. Inset is a zoom to the region between –2 and 2 ps.

Figure 4

Figure 5 Spectral evolution of the pulse from the front-end (a) through the first MPC stage (b) to the last compression stage (c). Post-compression in two noble gas filled multi-pass cells is performed. Spectral width is denoted at –13 dB corresponding to 5% power bandwidth. Only close proximity of the essential region of the spectrum is measured. The plots are presented for a 10 kHz repetition rate, but when tested at lower repetition rates the figures look almost identical.

Figure 5

Figure 6 Vertical (a) and horizontal (c) spatially resolved spectrum measurement of the output pulses on a linear scale; the corresponding spectral homogeneity V parameter values are visualized in (b) and (d), respectively.

Figure 6

Figure 7 Result of the CEP measurements by the stereo-ATI instrument at 10 kHz repetition rate. Gray dots are shot-to-shot measurements when CEP stabilization is not applied, while blue dots represent the operation with feedback from the f-2f interferometer.

Figure 7

Figure 8 Time evolution of the particle count rates of photoelectrons and photoions from one-photon single ionization of argon by XUV light recorded with a C-ReMi end-station during an 8-h long acquisition at a 10 kHz laser pulse repetition rate.