We demonstrate an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier producing infrared 20 fs (3-optical-cycle) pulses with a stable carrier-envelope phase. The amplifier is seeded with self-phase-stabilized pulses obtained by optical rectification of the output of an ultrabroadband Ti:sapphire oscillator. Energies of -80 microJ with a well-suppressed background of parametric superfluorescence and up to 400 microJ with a superfluorescence background are obtained from a two-stage parametric amplifier based on periodically poled LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 crystals. The parametric amplifier is pumped by an optically synchronized 1 kHz, 30 ps, 1053 nm Nd:YLF amplifier seeded by the same Ti:sapphire oscillator.

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Mid-infrared supercontinuum (SC) extending to ~4.0 mum is generated with 1.3 W time-averaged power, the highest power to our knowledge, in ZBLAN (ZrF(4)-BaF(2)-LaF(3)-AlF(3)-NaF...) fluoride fiber by using cladding-pumped fiber amplifiers and modulated laser diode pulses. We demonstrate the scalability of the SC average power by varying the pump pulse repetition rate while maintaining the similar peak power. Simulation results obtained by solving the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation show that the long wavelength edge of the SC is primarily determined by the peak pump power in the ZBLAN fiber.

Novel index-guiding-core single-mode fibers with V >> 2.405 are demonstrated at 1550-nm and 1064-nm wavelengths. This fiber design is based on chirally-coupled core concept, which enables a new type of index-guiding and photonic-crystal fiber structures.OCIS codes: (060.2280) Fiber design and fabrication; (060.2320) Fiber optics amplifiers and oscillators Introduction.Recent advance of fiber laser technology into multi-kW average 1 and multi-MW peak 2, power generation in diffractionlimited output beams have been critically based on adopting so called Large-Mode Area (LMA) fibers, in which multimode fibers with large cores (typically 20-μm to 30-μm diameter, with 65-μm to 80-m state of the art demonstrations 2 ) are used with careful mode-management 3, 4 for achieving single-mode operation. This offsets many traditional technological advantages of conventional single-mode low-power fiber laser technology, hindering development of all-monolithic large-core fiber systems.