Abstract

Traveling-wave optical parametric generators pumped by Ti: sapphire regenerative amplifiers at 1 kHz repetition rate represent a convenient tool to produce powerful and highly reproducible femtosecond pulses in the near infrared. [1] Pumping by the second harmonic in order to cover the visible spectral region near 600 nm is, however, considerably complicated because of the substantial increase of the group-velocity mismatch. [2] We demonstrate here a rather simple way to avoid this problem by simultaneous phase-matching of two nonlinear optical processes, optical parametric amplification and sum-frequency generation in a single β-barium borate (BBO) nonlinear crystal.

© 1996 IEEE