Multi-pass cell contrast improvement with enhanced frequency chirping

The temporal contrast of multi-pass cells can be increased significantly by implementing the technique of enhanced frequency chirping. By manipulating the pulse form using dispersive self-phase modulation the spectral modulations are reduced resulting in a pulse with decreased side-pulses and more energy in the main feature. Using MPC mirrors with a tailored dispersion and afterwards compensating accumulated higher order dispersions the energy ratio and peak power boost of a MPC can be improved notably.