Intense and Collimated Supercontinuum Generation Using Microlens Array

A method of high power supercontinuum (SC) generation is proposed, in which femtosecond pulses are focused into a transparent medium using a microlens array (MLA). The MLA combining a telescopic system is used to form long-path multiple filaments inside the medium, and another symmetrically arranged telescopic system and MLA are used to collimate of the emitting multiple SC beams from filaments. The reshaped stable SC beam shows a Gaussian intensity transverse distribution and similar spectra and chirp properties with that generated by single filament, while the pulse energy can be increased by more than two orders.