Filamentation compression of CPA laser pulses and beam applications

Compression of amplified laser pulses beyond the limits of a compressor grating-setup has been a fruitful topic of research for decades. Filamentation compression offers a solution which benefits from a higher energy capacity and being easier to couple light into than the the hollow-core fiber compression scheme. Here, 40 fs CPA laser pulses with 40 nm FWHM bandwidth are spectrally-broadened and compressed. An experimental analysis of the post-filamented beam's spatial profile, spectrum, and pulse length is presented. Also included is an analysis of various appropriate applications for this beam and ideally how its performance compares to the pre-filamented beam in a few laser-plasma interaction experiments including Kα x-ray generation and LWFA.