Sub-two-cycle, carrier-envelope phase-stable, intense optical pulses at 1.6 μm from a BiB3O6 optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier

We report on the generation of 9.0 fs, 550 mu J, carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stabilized optical pulses around 1.6 mu m at 1 kHz. Few-cycle IR pulses are obtained from a BiB3O6 optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier. The amplification of nearly octave-spanning ultrabroad pulses without spectral broadening results in good stability in output energy (0.85% rms) and CEP (160 mrad rms). We observed high harmonics in the water window from a neon cell that corresponds to a laser intensity of 4.1 x 10(14) W/cm(2). (C) 2012 Optical Society of America