Soliton self-compression based HHG driver for water-window transient absorption experiments

We present the generation of a supercontinuum soft-X-ray spectrum generated by high-harmonic generation driven by self-compressed 1450 nm pulses using the soliton effect. The compression of 2.8 mJ, 30 fs pulses down to sub 10-fs (supporting 7.2 fs duration) is achieved in a hollow-core fiber and delivered to the HHG target under vacuum using no additional dispersive optics.