Tunable visible and NIR parametric amplifiers at 1 kHz and pulse lengths down to 10 fs

Abstract

Noncollinear phase matching in a type I BBO optical parametric amplifier seeded by a high quality continuum is shown to produce pulses at 470 to 730 nm center wavelength with lengths down to 10 fs. Type II phase matching allows to access the 700 to 1100 nm range. The amplification preserves the phase of the seed light even at high efficiency. For characterization of the ultrashort visible pulses a SiC photodiode is found to be superior to thin nonlinear crystals.