QUINTIC-PHASE-LIMITED, SPATIALLY UNIFORM EXPANSION AND RECOMPRESSION OF ULTRASHORT OPTICAL PULSES

Design of an expansion and recompression system for amplification of sub-20-fs optical pulses to multiterawatt peak powers is presented. The system allows one to eliminate spatial inhomogeneities and cubic and quartic phase errors that make existing designs unsuitable for use with pulses much shorter than 100 fs. We experimentally demonstrate >10,000 times expansion and recompression of approximately 25-fs optical pulses.