Abstract

The energy scaling up of pulse postcompression is still an open issue. In this work we analyze the use of astigmatic focusing to improve the output pulses in a filamentation based postcompression setup. Unlike spherical conditions, astigmatic focusing enhances the output energy and the spectral broadening of the filament. This is due to the increase of critical power, allowing a considerable improvement of the postcompression energy and stability in a simple way. We demonstrated compression from FWHM $100\mathrm{fs}$, $10\mathrm{nm}$, $3\mathrm{mJ}$ input pulses to $13\mathrm{fs}$, $142\mathrm{nm}$, near $1\mathrm{mJ}$ pulses.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

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