Theoretical analysis of the gain bandwidth for noncollinear parametric amplification of ultrafast pulses

Abstract

The choice of optimum phase-matching conditions for noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers is usually made on the basis of the linear spectral dispersion characteristics of the anisotropic nonlinear crystal. However, for high-peak-power operation, where pump depletion is involved, it is shown that the tolerance of the parametric gain with regard to k-vector mismatch is to change the optimum phase-matching parameters. Our calculations show that, with the revised parameters, an enhancement in peak power approaching 50% could be achieved. © 2007 Optical Society of America.