Power-scalable few-cycle pulse self-compression in a 12-cm-long antiresonant hollow-core fiber

We investigate long-term-stable ultra-compact single-stage few-cycle pulse self-compression through soliton dynamics in a 12-cm homemade nodeless antiresonant argon-filled hollow-core fiber. The direct output of 6.5-fs self-compressed pulses and 5.2-fs post-compressed pulses is achieved from a 180-fs ytterbium laser with high repetition rates of up to 200 kHz. By mitigating optical resonances (Fabry–Pérot resonances of glass walls and Fano resonances at contact nodes) and mechanical resonances (flexural vibrations), we observe stable plasma-assisted blueshifted spectral evolution as the input pulse energy increased, which aligns well with numerical modeling.