Design of intense 1.5-cycle pulses generation at 3.6 µm through a pressure gradient hollow-core fiber.

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of the 10-mJ, 62-fs, 3.6-µm laser pulses in an argon gas-filled hollow-core fiber with large diameter of 1000 µm. Using a pressure gradient to restrict undesirable nonlinear effect such as ionization, especially at the entrance, we obtain the intense 18.3-fs (~1.5 cycle) pulses at 3.6 µm only through compression with CaF₂ crystal, which can be used as an ultrafast source for strong field driven experiments. In addition, we calculate and discuss the relation between optimal fiber length and coupling efficiency for a given bandwidth. These results are useful for the design of using hollow-core fiber to compress the high-energy pulses with long wavelength.