My research revolves around ultra-short laser pulses. I am working on techniques to further compress laser pulses in time. The particular scheme I am investigating is based on nonlinear Multi-Pass Cells. This approach allows temporal compression of input pulses with pulse durations of several 100 fs or even ps, to output pulses with durations of 30 fs or less with high throughput, thus increasing peak powers. These pulses are in turn used to generate attosecond XUV pulses via the process of high harmonic generation.

To achieve pulse post-compression, the nonlinear optical process of self-phase modulation is commonly used. During nonlinear propagation, the pulse may experience parasitic effects that decrease its quality, making it less suitable for applications. It is therefore important to characterize the pulses, in terms of duration, spectral bandwidth and spatial characteristics. Multi-pass cells are in this context a novel approach, and we aim to push them towards higher powers and shorter pulses. In my work I investigate this both by simulations and experiments in the laboratory.

There are many areas where short, good quality pulses are required. One of those is high harmonic generation, where intense lasers drive a process which generates Extreme ultraviolet light pulses with very short durations. This is strongly dependent on the input laser pulses, and this places strict requirements on the pulses we produce, as we aim to optimize this process to get a good conversion efficiency.