Abstract
Parametric frequency mixing of amplified femtosecond visible pulses with the broadband emission from a white-light continuum has been previously applied to generate femtosecond optical pulses in the spectral range between 1 and 15 μm.1,2 The disadvantages of this system are very poor conversion efficiency and rather strong intensity fluctuations originating from the white-light continuum. Here we present a new approach to the generation of femtosecond optical pulses in the mid-infrared range using the emission from a traveling-wave dye cell3 as the source of the idler frequency for the parametric mixing in a nonlinear LiIO3-crystal. Because of the high efficiency of the traveling wave dye cell, we achieve photon conversion efficiencies of up to 10% and pulse energies around 10 nJ with only 5 μJ input energy from the copper-vapor amplified CPM pulses at 620 nm.
© 1991 Optical Society of America
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