Hybrid air-bulk multi-pass cell compressor for high pulse energies with full spatio-temporal characterization

Multi-pass cell (MPC) compressors have proven to be the method of choice for compression of high average power long-pulse Yb lasers. Yet, generating sub-30 fs pulses at high pulse energy with compact and simple components remains a challenge. This work demonstrates an efficient and cost-effective approach for nonlinear pulse compression at high pulse energy using a hybrid air-bulk MPC. By carefully balancing the relative nonlinear contributions of ambient air and fused silica, we achieve strong spectral broadening without dispersion engineering or pressure-control inside the cell at 400-µJ pulse energy. In this way, we compress pulses from 220 fs to 27 fs at 40.3 W of average power (100 kHz repetition rate), enhancing the peak power from 1.6 GW to 10.2 GW while maintaining 78% of the energy within the main pulse. Our approach combines the strengths of gas-filled and bulk compression schemes and exhibits excellent overall optical transmission (91%) and spectral uniformity. Moreover, we utilize the INSIGHT technique to investigate spatio-temporal couplings and geometrical aberrations of the compressed pulse. Our results demonstrate remarkable temporal homogeneity, with an average Strehl ratio of 0.97 consistently observed throughout the entire spectral profile. Additionally, all spectrally-integrated Zernike coefficients for geometrical aberrations maintain values below 0.02λ.