Mid-Infrared Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (MIR OPCPA)

There is significant demand for intense, powerful, and ultrashort mid-infrared laser sources. This demand arises from the interest in understanding and exploiting the wavelength-scaling behavior of numerous physical processes in strong-field physics and attosecond science.

The generation of such mid-infrared sources still represents a significant challenge. Due to the lack of sufficiently broadband conventional laser gain media, nonlinear optical frequency conversion is the method of choice to generate femtosecond mid-infrared pulses. In particular, optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) is the most promising technique to achieve this goal.

To accommodate this demand we are pioneering a novel approach to OPCPA system design DownloadRef. [301] (PDF, 387 KB) DownloadRef. [333] (PDF, 1021 KB) DownloadRef. [339] (PDF, 863 KB) DownloadRef.[358] (PDF, 592 KB). There are several important and advantageous features of our approach, which is illustrated in Fig. 1:

  • The use of turn-key, industrial-grade lasers for the pump and seed
  • The use aperiodically poled lithium niobate (APPLN) for bandwidth-scalable parametric amplification
  • An all-collinear system configuration, with compression of the 3.4 µm idler output via bulk propagation, combined with optimal pre-chirping of the 1.5 µm seed.
Enlarged view: Fig 1: Overview of our high repetition rate - mid-infrared OPCPA system, including a home-built Innoslab-type pump amplifier [311]
Fig 1: Overview of our high repetition rate - mid-infrared OPCPA system, including a home-built Innoslab-type pump amplifier [311]

With this system, we demonstrated the first OPCPA based on aperiodic quasi-phase matching (QPM) DownloadRef. [301] (PDF, 387 KB). Parametric amplification based on aperiodic (chirped) QPM gratings offers a number of key advantages including:

By exploiting these advantageous features, in our latest result we demonstrated an ultra-broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplification system operating at 3.4 µm center wavelength with a peak power of >250 MW. The system delivers 41.6-fs pulses with 600 mW of average power, corresponding to 12 µJ of pulse energy at a repetition rate of 50 kHz DownloadRef. [358] (PDF, 592 KB), well suited to strong-field physics experiments. Furthermore, with improved optics and AR-coated devices, our efficient bulk compression scheme will enable access to almost all of the 19 µJ idler generated inside the final APPLN crystal.

References

[1] M. Charbonneau-Lefort, B. Afeyan, and M. M. Fejer,
external page“Optical parametric amplifiers using chirped quasi-phase-matching gratings I: practical design formulas,"
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 25, 463-480 (2008)

[2] C. R. Phillips, L. Gallmann, and M. M. Fejer,
external page"Design of quasi-phasematching gratings via convex optimization,"
Opt. Express 21, 10139-10159 (2013)

[3] C. R. Phillips and M. M. Fejer,
external page“Efficiency and phase of optical parametric amplification in chirpedquasi-phase-matched gratings,"
Opt. Lett. 35, 3093-3095 (2010)

[301] C. Heese, C. R. Phillips, L. Gallmann, M. M. Fejer, U. Keller
Download“Ultrabroadband, highly flexible amplifier for ultrashort midinfrared laser pulses based on aperiodically poled Mg:LiNbO3” (PDF, 387 KB)
Optics Lett., vol. 35, No. 14, pp. 2340-2342, 2010

[311] C. Heese, A. E. Oehler, L. Gallmann, U. Keller
Download“High-energy picosecond Nd:YVO4 slab amplifier for OPCPA pumping” (PDF, 422 KB)
Appl. Phys. B, vol. 103, pp. 5-8, 2011 (published online April 7, 2011)

[333] C. Heese, C. R. Phillips, L. Gallmann, M. M. Fejer, U. Keller
Download“The role of apodization in optical parametric amplifiers based on aperiodic quasi-phasematching gratings” (PDF, 1021 KB)
Optics Express, vol. 20, pp. 18066-18071, 2012

[339] C. Heese, C. R. Phillips, B. W. Mayer, L. Gallmann, M. M. Fejer, U. Keller
Download“75 MW few-cycle mid-infrared pulses from a collinear apodized APPLN-based OPCPA” (PDF, 863 KB)
Optics Express, vol. 20, No. 24, pp. 26888-26894, 2012

[358] B. W. Mayer, C. R. Phillips, L. Gallmann, M. M. Fejer, U. Keller
Download"Sub-four-cycle laser pulses directly from a high-repetition-rate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier at 3.4 µm" (PDF, 592 KB)
Optics Lett., vol. 38, No. 21, pp. 4265-4268, 2013

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