Optical pulse compression to 3.4 fs in the monocycle region by feedback phase compensation

We, compensated for chirp of optical pulses with an over-one-octave bandwidth (495,71090 run; center wavelength of 655.4 nm) produced by self-phase modulation in a single argon-filled hollow fiber and generated 3.4-fs, 1.56 optical-cycle pulses ( 00 nJ, 1-kHz repetition rate). This was achieved with a feedback system combined with only one 4-f phase compensator with a spatial light modulator and a significantly improved phase characterizer based on modified spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction. To the best of our knowledge, this is the shortest pulse in the visible-to-infrared region. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.