Laser physicists from the Laboratory of Attosecond Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics have developed an infrared light source that has a very broad spectrum of wavelengths.
The physicists have developed a new disc laser capable of emitting very short pulses at 77,000 pulses per second, amounting to 19 W of average power. The pulses themselves are femtoseconds in duration. Based on this laser, researchers generated a wavelength spectrum spanning from 4.5 µm to 20 µm.
With this system, researchers have achieved the broadest simultaneous infrared coverage from a solid-state laser. Moreover, the infrared laser pulses emitted should correspond to a sub-cycle pulse in the time domain.
Their work is reported in Light: Science and Applications.
