Abstract
Focusing 800-nm pulses of 10–20 fs and ≤0.4 mJ into atmospheric-pressure argon gives rise to a supercontinuum extending down to 250 nm. We show that spectral cuts from this radiation can be shortened by a simple prism compressor down to 30 fs even near the UV cut-off. The resulting pulses have enough energy (several hundred nanojoules) to serve as a simple and rugged broadly tunable pump source in ultra-fast transient spectroscopy. Such an application is demonstrated for the first time, using pulses tuned over 280–320 nm to excite Cr(CO)6; probing it by intense-field ionization at 800 nm, we determine the lifetime of initially populated states to be as short as 14 fs.
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42.65.Jx; 42.65.Ky; 42.65.Re; 42.72.Bj; 82.20.-w; 82.53.-k
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Trushin, S., Fuss, W., Kosma, K. et al. Widely tunable ultraviolet sub-30-fs pulses from supercontinuum for transient spectroscopy. Appl. Phys. B 85, 1–5 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-006-2416-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-006-2416-6