Abstract
In this thesis, we use the multiple-plates continuum (MPC) [1] method to generate one-cycle pulses at the central wavelength of 1030nm. In the experiment, the input light source come from the Yb-KGW commercial laser system, which is widely used because of its high repetition rate and high average power. However, the drawback of the Yb-KGW laser is its narrow bandwidth which limits the initial pulse duration to hundreds of femtoseconds. It is difficult to span the bandwidth over one octave to get one-cycle pulses. Thus, we build a two-stage MPC, together with the compressor system to achieve ultrashort pulses down to 3 fs. In the beginning of the experiment, a 1.07 mJ, 1 kHz, 170 fs, 1030 nm input pulse was focused into the first MPC stage to span the input spectrum, the output pulse bandwidth (end-to-end) ranges from 960 nm to 1100 nm while the output energy is 675 μJ. Then, we send this pulses into the Fourier pulse shaper to compensate the dispersion. The pulse has compressed down to 29 fs, while the output energy is 275 μJ. It is interesting that the peak power of the compressed pulse is 1.5 times higher than the initial one and it is enough to do the second MPC broadening. Focused second MPC, the output pulse has 150uJ energy and a spectrum cover more than one octave from 580nm to 1300 nm at the -20 dB level. The second Fourier shaper was also utilized to deal with the dispersion compensation. Finally, we successfully obtain a 50 μJ, 3.13 fs one-cycle pulses.