Self-Compression of High Energy Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Nonlinear pulse compression techniques have been applied widely in the pursuit of ultra-intense laser pulse with extremely high pulse energy (approximate to mJ) and extremely short pulse duration (approximate to sub-10 fs). Although postcompression techniques using dispersive gratings or chirped mirrors have achieved 1 TW few-cycle pulses, further increasing of the pulse intensity is limited by the damage threshold of dispersive optics, especially when self-focusing and ionization in the propagation medium are considered. To overcome such limitations, ultrashort pulses self-compression techniques without vulnerable dispersive optics have been explored in the past two decades. In this paper, the latest advances in these techniques will be reviewed with a discussion on the progress of various experimental approaches as well as their potential applications and roles in generating extremely intense optical fields for strong-field physics research. Self-compression techniques without dispersion compensation optics have been explored for high-energy few-cycle pulse generation in the past two decades. In this paper, the latest advances in these techniques will be reviewed with a discussion on the progress of various experimental approaches as well as their potential applications in generating extremely intense optical fields for strong-field physics research.image