TW-scale mid-infrared pulses near 3.3 μm directly generated by dual-chirped optical parametric amplification

We report on the generation of a 31 mJ mid-infrared (MIR) pulse with a repetition rate of 10 Hz near 3.3 mu m by a dual-chirped optical parametric amplification (DC-OPA) scheme using MgO:LiNbO3 crystals. The MIR pulse is compressed to 70 fs (6.3 optical cycles), which is close to the transform-limited duration of 66 fs, by a CaF2 bulk compressor with 70% throughput efficiency, resulting in 0.3 TW peak power. Our demonstration presents notable progress in the generation of high-energy MIR pulses and proves that DC-OPA is a suitable method for efficiently generating few-cycle MIR pulses with TW-class peak power. Published by AIP Publishing.