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

Design of an expansion and recompression system for amplification of s ub-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 wit h pulses much shorter than 100 fs. We experimentally demonstrate >10,0 00 times expansion and recompression of approximately 25-fs optical pu lses.