High-power OPCPA generating 1.7 cycle pulses at 2.5 μm

We present a high-power mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) generating 14.4 fs pulses centered at 2.5 mu m with an average power of 12.6 W and a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The short pulses are obtained without nonlinear pulse compression. This is in contrast to most few-cycle systems operating in the mid-IR. In our case, the ultrashort pulse duration is enabled by a careful design of the gain profile of each amplification stage as well as a precise control of the signal dispersion throughout the system. A pulse shaper is used in the seed beam to adjust the spectral phase at the output of the OPCPA system. This approach allows for a clean temporal profile leading to a high peak power of 6.3 GW. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement