Abstract

A picosecond laser system that will generate high-power tunable IR pulses with bandwidths suitable for spectroscopic applications is discussed. The system is based on white-light continuum generation in ethylene glycol and optical parametric amplification in potassium titanyl phosphate. The nonlinear-optical processes are driven by a regeneratively amplified Ti:sapphire laser that produces 1.7-ps pulses at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. Energies as high as 40 and 12 μJ have been achieved over the signal (1.02–1.16-μm) and idler (2.6–3.7-μm) tuning ranges, respectively. The IR beam temporal and spatial characteristics are also presented.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

High-power broadly tunable picosecond IR laser system for use in nonlinear spectroscopic applications

D. E. Gragson, B. M. Mc Carty, G. L. Richmond, and D. S. Alavi
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 13(9) 2075-2083 (1996)

Femtosecond pulse amplification at 250 kHz with a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier and application to continuum generation

T. B. Norris
Opt. Lett. 17(14) 1009-1011 (1992)

Tunable femtosecond optical parametric amplifier in the mid-infrared with narrow-band seeding

V. Petrov and F. Noack
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12(11) 2214-2221 (1995)

Widely tunable femtosecond optical parametric amplifier at 250 kHz with a Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier

Murray K. Reed, Michael K. Steiner-Shepard, and Daniel K. Negus
Opt. Lett. 19(22) 1855-1857 (1994)

Tunable picosecond mid-infrared pulses generated by optical parametric generation/amplification in MgO:LiNbO₃ crystals

Shujie Lin and Takanori Suzuki
Opt. Lett. 21(8) 579-581 (1996)