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A second article in Nature Communications for the GPPMM

In an article published in Nature Communications, the GPPMM group (XLIM Research Institute, UMR of CNRS and the University of Limoges, France) in collaboration with the University of Vienna has achieved a breakthrough in fast laser pulse compression by generating the shortest infrared optical pulse ever produced. The impact of this work could completely transform the ultrafast lasers and attoscience landscape. Indeed, generating optical pulses with high-power and duration of less than a few femtoseconds (a billionth of a millionth of a second) or below, is the keystone to control and monitor extremely fast dynamics of the constituents of matter such as that of the electron motion in its atomic orbit. However, generating these very brief pulses remains a very difficult and cumbersome undertaking to deploy with present technology. The GPPMM group and collaborators have made an important step towards popularizing these ultra-short pulses by succeeding the dual challenge of self-compressing an infrared pulse by a factor of 20 to reach the difficult sub-cycle regime, and of achieving it in an extremely compact device based on a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber that especially designed and fabricated.

See CNRS press release.