Berlin 2014 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 40: Ultrashort laser pulses I

Q 40.1: Talk

Thursday, March 20, 2014, 10:30–10:45, DO26 207

Watt-level 40 MHz femtosecond optical parametric amplifier coherently seeded by an optical soliton — •Tobias Steinle, Andy Steinmann, Robin Hegenbarth, and Harald Giessen — 4th Physics Institute and Research Center SCOPE, University of Stuttgart, Germany

We report on a femtosecond high-repetition rate optical parametric amplifier that is seeded by an optical soliton from a tapered fiber. Gap-free signal tuning from 1.35 µm to 1.95 µm with up to 1.8 W average power at 1.4 µm and more than 1.1 W up to 1.7 µm is demonstrated. More than half a Watt is generated at the corresponding idler wavelengths from 2.2 µm to 4.5 µm. The system is directly pumped by a 7.4 W Yb:KGW femtosecond oscillator at 41.7 MHz repetition rate. In contrast to supercontinuum-seeded optical parametric amplifiers, soliton-seeding leads to excellent pulse-to-pulse stability, but it introduces a timing-jitter on the millisecond timescale. This timing-jitter can be suppressed by a two-stage concept due to the passive synchronization of both conversion stages. We achieve short time pulse-to-pulse fluctuations of only 0.8% and record long-term stability over 30 min of 0.6%. The system is ideal for pump-probe spectroscopy applications as well as a compact mid-IR broadband source, with the perspective of replacing synchrotron sources for FTIR microscopy.