Oliver D. Muecke

Role of the carrier-envelope phase in extreme nonlinear optics in ZnO

We discuss the dependence of nonlinear optical signals on the carrier-envelope offset phase, i.e., the phase between the rapidly oscillating carrier wave and the electric field envelope of a few-cycle pulse. Our results in the regime on non-perturbative resonant nonlinear optics are compared with the know off-resonant perturbative regime. In particular, we introduce camouflage third-harmonic generation, which shows up as a peak at twice the carrier-envelope offset frequency in the radio-frequency spectra. Corresponding experiments on ZnO with intense 5 fs optical pulses are discussed. We speculate on the perspectives of using such effects for determining the carrier-envelope offset phase itself.

Orthogonal control for stable parallel waveform synthesis

We present a control scheme for parallel optical parametric waveform synthesizers. Orthogonalization of the relative arrival time and relative phase between all individual channels promises to achieve shot-to-shot stable and controlled ultra-broadband pulse synthesis.

Strong-Field Few-Cycle 2-μm pulses via Kagome-Fiber Compression of Picosecond Ho:YLF Laser Pulses

We present strong-field few-cycle 2-μm pulses based on air-filled Kagome-fiber compression of 140-μJ, 3.3-ps pulses from Ho:YLF amplifier to 48 fs and 11 μJ energy. This is the first demonstration of 70-fold compression from Kagome fibers at 2 μm.