Generation of ultrashort intense optical pulses at 1.6 μm from a bismuth triborate-based optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier with carrier-envelope phase stabilization

Abstract

We describe a few-cycle intense optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) in the IR that is based on bismuth triborate (BiB3O6, BIBO) crystals. Two Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplification systems are used to generate seed and pump pulses for the OPCPA. Carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stabilized seed pulses in the IR are produced by difference frequency mixing of white light spanning from the visible to near IR range. The seed pulses, which have a nearly one octave-spanning spectrum around 1.6 μm, are temporally stretched in an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter and amplified up to 550 μJ in two BIBO-based parametric amplifiers without losing their bandwidth. After compression in a fused silica block, we obtained 9.2 fs optical pulses with a repetition rate of 1 kHz, which comprise less than two optical cycles at 1.6 μm. These optical pulses were used to generate extreme ultraviolet (XUV) high harmonics in krypton. We succeeded in measuring the CEP dependence of the XUV radiation near the silicon L edge around 100 eV, verifying the passive stabilization of the CEP of the sub-two cycle IR pulses. The XUV spectra consist of two half-cycle cutoffs and show a clear transition from a modulated structure to a continuum near the cutoff. The continuum-like spectra as well as their CEP dependence indicate that they originate in a single recombination burst, showing that few-cycle IR OPCPA light sources are capable of generating attosecond pulses in the XUV region.

Ultrafast Mid-IR Laser Pulses Generation via Chirp Manipulated Optical Parametric Amplification

“…Using signal and idler pulses centered at the same wavelength, phase-matching is realized to the first order and the pulses are amplified with an ultrabroad bandwidth. Degenerate OPA systems have been investigated in a number of previous works, and the possibility of producing degenerate few-cycle pulses has been confirmed theoretically and experimentally [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57].…”

Development and prospect on driving laser for attosecond pulse

“…1~2 μm波段具有极宽的相位匹配带宽. 当以钛宝石激 光作为OPA过程的泵浦光时, 在1.1~2.4 μm具有很宽的 位相匹配带宽 [63] , 因而可以获得1.7 μm、3 mJ、11.4 fs、1 kHz的高能量超短脉冲 [64] , 并已经成功用于软X 射线波段孤立阿秒的产生 [65,66] . Fu等人 [67] 基于MgO:LN晶体更 是获得了3.3 μm、21 mJ的太瓦级飞秒光脉冲.…”

Optical Parametric Amplification Techniques for the Generation of High-Energy Few-Optical-Cycles IR Pulses for Strong Field Applications

“…In this sense, an OPCPA system in the near-IR working at a repetition rate of 1 kHz and fully based on Ti:Sa laser technology was recently developed by Ishii and coworkers [40].…”