Generation of an ultrashort optical pulse by four-wave Raman mixing in deuterium cooled at 77 K

When a 100-fs Ti : sapphire laser is focused into molecular deuterium cooled at 77 K, rotational stimulated Raman emission is generated based on four-wave Raman mixing. By phase locking the emission lines, the laser pulsewidth was reduced to 40 fs, when a nearly transform-limited pulse was utilized as a fundamental laser. The pulsewidth was further reduced to 20 fs, when a positively chirped pulse was employed. Computer simulation suggests that the Raman emission is strongly chirped and a train of pulses with lower intensities are formed when a chirp pulse is used as a fundamental laser.