High energy femtosecond pulse shaping, contrast enhancement and compression using nonlinear multicore fiber

Nonlinear spatiotemporal dynamics of femtosecond pulses in a hexagonal 7-core silica fiber pumped by a sub-uJ 370 fs Er:fiber CPA system was studied. Two orders of magnitude contrast enhancement of the pulses trapped in the central core of a multicore fiber was obtained. Further compression of pulses spectrally broadened in the multicore fiber down to 53 fs was demonstrated.