Physics

Regenerative amplification

CMOS

Laser

Nonlinear optics

Optical amplifier

Optics

Amplifier

Ultrashort pulse

Materials science

Pulse (music)

Self-phase modulation

Optoelectronics

Optical parametric amplifier

Detector

Optics Letters

We report a long-wavelength mid-infrared (mid-IR), few-cycle optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) based on LiGaS2 crystals, pumped by a 1 μm Yb:YAG laser, at a 10 kHz repetition rate. The mid-IR OPCPA system generates pulses centered at 9 μm, with 1 4 μJ pulse energy and 140 mW average power. A 142 fs pulse width, which corresponds to less than 5 optical cycles at 9 μm, is measured by an interferometric autocorrelator. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first long-wavelength mid-IR OPCPA pumped at 1 μm wavelength. It paves the way for the energy and power scaling of the ultrafast long-wavelength mid-IR lasers by utilizing advanced high-energy, high-power 1 μm pump lasers.

9 μm few-cycle optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier based on LiGaS<sub>2</sub>

9 μm few-cycle optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier based on LiGaS2

9 μm few-cycle optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier based on LiGaS₂