Light Flute - Compact Pulse Compression

The Light Flute™

The most compact pulse post-compression system to reach sub-10 fs pulses with hundreds of uJ of energy.

Our unique Light Flute is available either as a fully integrated & operation ready one box solution* (120 cm x 20xm x 10 cm) or as individual spectral broadening unit & separate optics like our chirped mirrors.

Technical Specifications

Size:

Energies:

Power:

Transmission:

M2:

Pointing stability:

Long-term

power stability:

Shot-to-shot

energy stability:

10 cm x 5 cm x 100 cm

40 uJ to 400 uJ (tunable)

up to 20 W

up to 85%

<1.3

<20 micro rad

<0.5% St.Dev

<0.8% St.Dev

* Currently available for Pharos or Carbide lasers

See it in action!

Live demonstration in a challenging environment was setup at the "Laser World of Photonics" in Munich, Germany in 2025.

An entire pulse compression setup on a 1.2m x 0.6m footprint and supported merely on beer crates.

It was built on site in an afternoon. Running with 0.2% power stability (without pointing stabilization).

Pulse compression setup (including pump laser) has only 1.2m x 0.6m footprint and consists of:

Pharos Laser (link) from Light Conversion,
Light Flute for spectral broadening,
set of chirped mirrors (link) for pulse compression, which are
compactly arranged inside a vacuum chamber "Vacube Q75" (link), and
fast FROG (link) for pulse measurement.

Reproducibility verified with Pharos laser from Light Conversion

Performance of Light Flute with a Pharos PH2-UP and Pharos PH2-20W-SP from Light Conversion.

Light Flute demonstrates constant 85% transmission with excellent M2 <1.3 quality of the beam, with clean (no "pedestals") pulse compression down to 8 fs pulse duration, and excellent shot-to-shot and long-term stability (<0.8% and <0.5% St.Dev, correspondingly). It also supports stable pointing of <20 micro radiant.

Small footprint of 5 cm x 100 cm makes it most compact pulse-post compression system on the market at hundreds of uJ level of energy. It supports up to 20 W of average power. Higher average power and energy levels are routinely supported by our standard pulse-post compression systems, which can be found here.

Spectrum of Pharos versus broadened spectrum in Light Flute pulse post-compression

Autocorrelation of pulse duration after compression after Light Flute versus input pulse duration of Pharos PH2-UP

Pulse post-compression of Pharos PH2-UP laser.

Input: 90 fs, tunable 40 to 400 uJ, up to 20 W (depending on the rep. rate)

Output: down to 8 fs, up to 340 uJ (85% of the input energy), up to 17 W (85% of the input power)

Spectrum of Pharos PH2-20W-SP versus spectrum broadened in Light Flute pulse post-compression

Autocorrelation of pulse duration after compression after Light Flute versus input pulse duration of Pharos PH2-20W-SP

Pulse post-compression of Pharos PH2-20W-SP laser.

Input: 180 fs, tunable 40 to 400 uJ, up to 20 W (depending on the rep. rate)

Output: down to 15 fs, up to 340 uJ (85% of the input energy), up to 17 W (85% of the input power)