Radially polarized lasers, in contrast to the conventional Gaussian laser mode, possess unique features such as sharp focusing and strong longitudinal fields. Thus far, radially polarized femtosecond pulses have been produced only by low-power devices such as mode-locked resonators and segmented half-wave plates. It is imperative to solve the bottleneck problem in generating higher powers and shorter durations. This paper reports on a polarization-insensitive, high-gain optical parametric amplifier for radially polarized femtosecond pulses, which works at type-II phase-matching and approximately degenerate wavelength. We experimentally demonstrate > 1000 -fold amplification of radially polarized ∼ 400 f s pulses at 1610 nm, via chirped ∼ 280 f s pumping at 800 nm, with the axially symmetric intensity profile and radial polarization state both being well-maintained within a 20 nm spectral range. With currently available high-energy picosecond pumping, the demonstrated amplification scheme will be promising to create radially polarized femtosecond pulses with ultrahigh powers and may facilitate future applications such as strong-field physics.
Dual-chirped difference frequency generation (DFG) is an advantageous technique for generating the broadband mid-infrared (IR) idler wave, which is inaccessible by a population-inversion-based laser system. In principle, the generated idler wave may even suffer a spectrum broadening compared with the driving pulsed lasers if the pump and signal waves are oppositely chirped. However, broadband phase-matching is always the determining factor for the resulting efficiency and the bandwidth of the generated idler wave. In this study, specific to an oppositely dual-chirped DFG scheme, we derive the precondition to realize broadband frequency conversion, wherein a negative $(1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{p}-1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{i})/(1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{s}-1/\unicode[STIX]{x1D710}_{i})$ , in terms of the correlation coefficient of the group velocity ( $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ ), is necessary. However, most birefringence bulk crystals can only provide the required material dispersions in limited spectral regions. We show that the periodically poled lithium niobate crystal that satisfies an inactive Type-II (eo-o) quasi-phase-matching condition has a stable negative $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$ and exerts the expected broadband gain characteristic across an ultra-broad idler spectral region $(1.7{-}4.0~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m})$ . Finally, we propose and numerically verify a promising DFG configuration to construct a tunable mid-IR spectrum broader based on the broadband phase-matched oppositely dual-chirped DFG scheme.
Thermal-induced phase-mismatch distortion, which will dramatically deteriorate the efficient energy transfer, has become a critical obstacle to power scaling of optical parametric amplifiers. To ease this efficiency deterioration, the noncollinear optical parametric amplification (OPA) configuration widely employed to achieve broadband phase-matching (PM) may also serve as a promising approach to optimize the temperature acceptance. In this paper, starting from the noncollinear wave-vector equations, a required thermo- and angle-relationship analogous to that of noncollinear broadband PM is firstly inferred. Based on the presented mathematical criterion, we have explored the potential spectral boundaries of this ingenious temperature insensitive OPA scheme. Full-dimensional simulations of two types of typical OPA processes were quantitatively discussed. Compared with traditional collinear PM designs, the presented noncollinear PM configurations show significant common characteristics on improving the temperature acceptance and subsequently the overall amplification efficiency. For a typical high power parametric process of the 532 nm pumped near-IR OPA at 800 nm especially, incredible temperature bandwidth exceeding 8000 °C was obtained while a YCOB (xz plane) crystal is adopted. What is more, it can also be applied to ameliorate the gain-spectrum thermo-instability of OPA.
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