Tunable few-cycle pulses from a dual-chirped optical parametric amplifier pumped by broadband laser.

We propose a dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) scheme pumped by a broadband laser pulse. The pump pulse is spectrally broadened in a multi-plate system before amplifying the chirped seed in a BBO crystal. The system performance and phase-matching mechanism with different pump bandwidths are investigated thoroughly. It is found that the broadened pump bandwidth benefits the system most effectively when the pump and seed pulses are oppositely chirped. The idler bandwidth is nearly tripled in the broadband pumped system, supporting a transform-limited (TL) duration of 8.4 fs (∼1.3 cycles), meanwhile the energy bandwidth product of the idler is 72.6% higher. Furthermore, the idler wavelength is tunable between 1700 nm and 2050 nm, with sub-1.5-cycle TL duration and over 14% conversion efficiency. The proposed scheme provides a suitable approach for the generation of few-cycle pulses varying from near-infrared to mid-infrared regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]