Abstract

Recent advances have dramatically shortened the minimum pulse duration obtainable from optical parametric amplifiers. In this work we report on two different powerful schemes for the generation of few-optical-cycle pulses in the visible and in the near-infrared respectively; both systems use β-barium borate (BBO) as amplifier crystal, but different phase matching conditions. In the visible, with non-collinear type I phase matching and long (≈ 150 fs) pump pulses, we obtain ultra-broadband sub-10-fs pulses; in the near-infrared, using collinear type II phase matching and short (≈18 fs) pump pulses, we achieve pulses tunable from 1.1 to 2.6 µm and with duration as short as 14.5 fs.

© 2000 Optical Society of America