ИСТИНА

Filamentation-assisted pulse compression in the gas phase is shown to enable the generation of subterawatt few-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared. With both spatial modulation instabilities and excessive plasma scattering of the mid-infrared beam prevented through a careful choice of the gas pressure and the input peak power, providing single-filament regime of pulse propagation, peak powers as high as 0.3 TW are achieved in a truly single-mode, almost diffraction-limited 35-fs output at a central wavelength of 4 μm. Applications in molecular spectroscopy, semiconductor electronics, high-field physics, standoff detection, and innovative x-ray sources are envisaged.