Phase-preserving chirped-pulse optical parametric amplification to 17.3 fs directly from a Ti:sapphire oscillator

Phase-stabilized 12-fs, 1-nJ pulses from a commercial Ti:sapphire oscillator are directly amplified in a chirped-pulse optical parametric amplifier and recompressed to yield near-transform-limited 17.3-fs pulses. The amplification process is demonstrated to be phase preserving and leads to 85-muJ, carrier-envelope-offset phase-locked pulses at 1 kHz for 0.9 mJ of pump, corresponding to a single-pass gain of 8.5 x 10(4). (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.