Broadly tunable femtosecond near- and mid-IR source by direct pumping of an OPA with a 417 MHz Yb:KGW oscillator

Abstract

Abstract:We generate over half a watt of tunable near-IR (1380-1830 nm) and several hundred milliwatts in the mid-IR (2.4-4.2 µm) as well as milliwatt level mid-IR (4.85-9.33 µm) femtosecond radiation by pumping an optical parametric amplifier directly with a 7.4 W Yb:KGW oscillator at 41.7 MHz repetition rate. We use 5 mm PPLN and 2 mm GaSe as downconversion crystals and seed this process by a supercontinuum from a tapered fiber. The system is extremely simple and very stable and could replace more complex OPOs as tunable light sources. repetition rate tunable femtosecond pulses and broadband amplification from fiber laser pumped parametric amplifier," Opt. Express 14(11), 4765-4773 (2006). 12. C. Schriever, S. Lochbrunner, P. Krok, and E. Riedle, "Tunable pulses from below 300 to 970 nm with durations down to 14 fs based on a 2 MHz ytterbium-doped fiber system," Opt. Lett. 33(2), 192-194 (2008). Chu, "Broadband tunable optical parametric amplification from a single 50 MHz ultrafast fiber laser," Opt.

High-energy, near- and mid-IR picosecond pulses generated by a fiber-MOPA-pumped optical parametric generator and amplifier

“…However, as a result of the single-pass interaction, OPGs require high-intensity pump sources to achieve a high parametric gain. Typically, this has been achieved using solid-state near-IR pump lasers based on gain media such as Ti:sapphire or Yb-doped tungstates [3][4][5]. Additionally, in order to reach the μJ-level mid-IR pulse energies that are interesting for organic materials processing techniques such as resonant infrared pulsed laser deposition (RIR-PLD) [6,7], systems are normally operated at Hz to kHz repetition rates [8][9][10].…”

A pragmatic guide to multiphoton microscope design

“…Optical parametric amplifiers [80], used in conjunction with Yb:KGW lasers, can be tuned from 620 to 990 nm [185], and from 1380 to 1830 nm [186]. Additionally, the use of nonlinear fibers can create a supercontinuum from 420 to 1750 nm [175].…”

Infrared supercontinuum frequency doubling via nonlinear Raman-Nath and Cerenkov scattering processes

“…In fact, quadratic nonlinearities can be properly engineered to generate waves with predetermined temporal duration, spectral and spatial shapes, and synchronization [9,10]. The concatenation of fibers with quadratic crystals has recently allowed to generate narrowbandwidth wavelength distributions from the UV to the near infrared [11][12][13][14] and to extend the near infrared SC in the visible region [15].…”