ABSTRACT
We demonstrate experimentally the generation of cross-polarized femtosecond pulses in BaF2 crystal in the UV region. We show that unsaturated cross-polarized wave generation in the UV is six times more efficient than in the visible region, and we deduce the corresponding wavelength dispersion of the third-order nonlinearity.
ABSTRACT
We take advantage of nonlinear properties associated with chi(3) tensor elements in BaF2 cubic crystal to improve the temporal contrast of femtosecond laser pulses. The technique presented is based on cross-polarized wave (XPW) generation. We have obtained a transmission efficiency of 10% and 10(-10) contrast with an input pulse in the millijoule range. This filter does not affect the spectral shape or the phase of the cleaned pulse. It also acts as an efficient spatial filter. In this method the contrast enhancement is limited only by the extinction ratio of the polarization discrimination device.
