Abstract

The temporal distribution of supercontinuum at different wavelengths generated by propagating an intense picosecond laser pulse through condensed matter was measured by a streak camera. Experimental results indicate that the Stokes continuum is at the leading edge and the anti-Stokes continuum is at the trailing edge of the laser pulse. The total output laser pulse duration was broadened in the condensed medium due to the group velocity dispersion. However, a 10-nm bandwidth selected from the supercontinuum has a slightly narrow pulse duration than the incident laser pulse envelope. This is attributed to the generation mechanism of the self-phase modulation process and the substructure of the incident laser pulse. Using a negative dispersion transmission holographic grating pair, a selected 10-nm band from a supercontinuum laser generated from an 8-ps laser pulse has been compressed down to ~1 ps.

© 1986 Optical Society of America