Femtosecond supercontinuum generation in a quadratic nonlinear medium (KDP)

We report the first ever femtosecond supercontinuum generation in a KDP crystal using similar to 100 fs pulses at 790 nm irradiation. Due to the quadratic nonlinearities of the KDP crystal an enhanced bandwidth of 385-960 nm is generated. The spatial and temporal coherence of the generated white light is demonstrated using Young's double slit interference configuration and a Michelson interferometer. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.