Abstract

Phase-stabilized sub two-cycle optical pulses with a spectral bandwidth of more than one octave are interesting in many regards. Great advances in time resolved optical spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography and fundamental research concerning electric-field dependent nonlinear optics (e.g. high harmonic generation) are made possible. The generation of such pulses has until recently only been made possible by extracavity spectral broadening (via self-phase-modulation (SPM)) and subsequent compression. Recently, impressive spectra from SPM in photonic bandgap fibers allowed the measurement and stabilisation of the carrier-envelope phase slip frequency f_CE via second–harmonic (SH) generation^1,2. Nevertheless, the complicated phase structure arising from the interplay between SPM and dispersion in the fiber makes recompression a difficult task and is not achieved in a satisfactory manner so far.

© 2001 EPS