Octave-spanning mid-infrared femtosecond OPA in a ZnGeP 2 pumped by a 2.4 μm Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier

Nam, Sang-Hoon; Fedorov, Vladimir; Mirov, Sergey; Hong, Kyung-Han

doi:10.1364/OE.405648

Octave-spanning mid-infrared femtosecond OPA in a ZnGeP ₂ pumped by a 2.4 μm Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier

Journal Article · Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Optics Express

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.405648· OSTI ID:1671857

Nam, Sang-Hoon; ; ;

We report on the highly efficient, octave-spanning mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical parametric amplification (OPA) in a ZnGeP ₂ (ZGP) crystal, pumped by a 1 kHz, 2.4 μm, 250 fs Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier. The full spectral coverage of 3−10 μm with the amplified signal and idler beams is demonstrated. The signal beam in the range of ∼3 − 5 μm is produced by either white light generation (WLG) in YAG or optical parametric generation (OPG) in ZGP using the common 2.4 μm pump laser. We demonstrate the pump to signal and idler combined conversion efficiency of 23% and the pulse energy of up to 130 μJ with ∼2 μJ OPG seeding, while we obtain the efficiency of 10% and the pulse energy of 55 μJ with ∼0.2 μJ WLG seeding. The OPA output energy is limited by the available pump pulse energy (0.55 mJ at ZGP crystal) and therefore further energy scaling is feasible with multi-stage OPA and higher pump pulse energy. The autocorrelation measurements based on random quasi-phase matching show that the signal pulse durations are ∼318 fs and ∼330 fs with WLG and OPG seeding, respectively. In addition, we show the spectrally filtered 30 μJ OPA output at 4.15 μm suitable for seeding a Fe:ZnSe amplifier. Our ultrabroadband femtosecond mid-IR source is attractive for various applications, such as strong-field interactions, dielectric laser electron acceleration, molecular spectroscopy, and medical surgery.

View Journal Article

Research Organization:: Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham, AL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: MIT Lincoln Laboratory; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; Office of Naval Research (ONR); USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0018378

OSTI ID:: 1671857

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1852618

Journal Information:: Optics Express, Journal Name: Optics Express Journal Issue: 22 Vol. 28; ISSN 1094-4087; ISSN OPEXFF

Publisher:: Optical Society of AmericaCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (25)

Progress in Cr ²⁺ and Fe ²⁺ doped mid-IR laser materials Mirov, S.; Fedorov, V.; Moskalev, I. Laser & Photonics Reviews, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1002/lpor.200810076	journal	January 2010
Mid-Infrared Time-Resolved Frequency Comb Spectroscopy of Transient Free Radicals Fleisher, Adam J.; Bjork, Bryce J.; Bui, Thinh Q. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 5, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/jz5008559	journal	June 2014
Ultrafast Dynamics of Surface Plasmons in InAs by Time-Resolved Infrared Nanospectroscopy Wagner, Martin; McLeod, Alexander S.; Maddox, Scott J. Nano Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl501558t	journal	July 2014
Random quasi-phase-matching in bulk polycrystalline isotropic nonlinear materials Baudrier-Raybaut, M.; Haïdar, R.; Kupecek, Ph. Nature, Vol. 432, Issue 7015 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03027	journal	November 2004
Multi-octave supercontinuum generation from mid-infrared filamentation in a bulk crystal Silva, F.; Austin, D. R.; Thai, A. Nature Communications, Vol. 3, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1816	journal	January 2012
High-brightness table-top hard X-ray source driven by sub-100-femtosecond mid-infrared pulses Weisshaupt, Jannick; Juvé, Vincent; Holtz, Marcel Nature Photonics, Vol. 8, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.256	journal	November 2014
High-energy mid-infrared sub-cycle pulse synthesis from a parametric amplifier Liang, Houkun; Krogen, Peter; Wang, Zhou Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00193-4	journal	July 2017
Parametric generation of energetic short mid-infrared pulses for dielectric laser acceleration Wandel, S.; Xu, G.; Yin, Y. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol. 47, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/47/23/234016	journal	November 2014
Design criteria for ultrafast optical parametric amplifiers Manzoni, C.; Cerullo, G. Journal of Optics, Vol. 18, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8978/18/10/103501	journal	August 2016
Progress in Mid-IR Lasers Based on Cr and Fe-Doped II–VI Chalcogenides Mirov, Sergey B.; Fedorov, Vladimir V.; Martyshkin, Dmitry IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 21, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTQE.2014.2346512	journal	January 2015
Frontiers of Mid-IR Lasers Based on Transition Metal Doped Chalcogenides Mirov, Sergey B.; Moskalev, Igor S.; Vasilyev, Sergey IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 24, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTQE.2018.2808284	journal	September 2018
High-energy, kHz-rate, picosecond, 2-μm laser pump source for mid-IR nonlinear optical devices Dergachev, Alex SPIE LASE, SPIE Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2001386	conference	March 2013
Refractive-index measurements and Sellmeier coefficients for zinc germanium phosphide from 2 to 9 µm with implications for phase matching in optical frequency-conversion devices Zelmon, David E.; Hanning, Elizabeth A.; Schunemann, Peter G. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, Vol. 18, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAB.18.001307	journal	January 2001
Multi-Watt mid-IR femtosecond polycrystalline Cr^2+:ZnS and Cr^2+:ZnSe laser amplifiers with the spectrum spanning 20–26 µm Vasilyev, Sergey; Moskalev, Igor; Mirov, Mike Optics Express, Vol. 24, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.001616	journal	January 2016
Parametric generation and characterization of femtosecond mid-infrared pulses in ZnGeP_2 Wandel, Scott; Lin, Ming-Wei; Yin, Yanchun Optics Express, Vol. 24, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.005287	journal	January 2016
Carrier-to-envelope phase-stable, mid-infrared, ultrashort pulses from a hybrid parametric generator: Cr:ZnSe laser amplifier system Komm, Pavel; Sheintop, Uzziel; Noach, Salman Optics Express, Vol. 27, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.018522	journal	January 2019
Directly diode-pumped, Kerr-lens mode-locked, few-cycle Cr:ZnSe oscillator Nagl, Nathalie; Gröbmeyer, Sebastian; Pervak, Vladimir Optics Express, Vol. 27, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.024445	journal	January 2019
Multi-mJ, kHz, 21 μm optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier and high-flux soft x-ray high-harmonic generation Hong, Kyung-Han; Lai, Chien-Jen; Siqueira, Jonathas P. Optics Letters, Vol. 39, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.39.003145	journal	January 2014
Broadband mid-infrared pulses from potassium titanyl arsenate/zinc germanium phosphate optical parametric amplifier pumped by Tm, Ho-fiber-seeded Ho:YAG chirped-pulse amplifier Malevich, Pavel; Kanai, Tsuneto; Hoogland, Heinar Optics Letters, Vol. 41, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.41.000930	journal	January 2016
Generation of 1 kHz, 23 mJ, 88 fs, 25 μm pulses from a Cr ²⁺ :ZnSe chirped pulse amplifier Ren, Xiaoming; Mach, Lam H.; Yin, Yanchun Optics Letters, Vol. 43, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.43.003381	journal	January 2018
Multimicrojoule GaSe-based midinfrared optical parametric amplifier with an ultrabroad idler spectrum covering 42–16 μm Liu, Kun; Liang, Houkun; Wang, Lifeng Optics Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.44.001003	journal	January 2019
35-mJ 150-fs Fe:ZnSe hybrid mid-IR femtosecond laser at 44 μm for driving extreme nonlinear optics Migal, Ekaterina; Pushkin, Andrey; Bravy, Boris Optics Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.44.002550	journal	January 2019
Ultrafast middle-IR lasers and amplifiers based on polycrystalline Cr:ZnS and Cr:ZnSe Vasilyev, Sergey; Moskalev, Igor; Mirov, Mike Optical Materials Express, Vol. 7, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1364/OME.7.002636	journal	January 2017
7 μm, ultrafast, sub-millijoule-level mid-infrared optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier pumped at 2 μm Sanchez, D.; Hemmer, M.; Baudisch, M. Optica, Vol. 3, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.3.000147	journal	January 2016
Super-octave longwave mid-infrared coherent transients produced by optical rectification of few-cycle 25-μm pulses Vasilyev, Sergey; Moskalev, Igor S.; Smolski, Viktor O. Optica, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.6.000111	journal	January 2019

Similar Records

Fiber-amplifier-pumped, 1-MHz, 1-µJ, 21-µm, femtosecond OPA with chirped-pulse DFG front-end

Journal Article · Wed Mar 13 20:00:00 EDT 2019 · Optics Express · OSTI ID:1499837

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS

Octave-spanning mid-infrared femtosecond OPA in a ZnGeP 2 pumped by a 2.4 μm Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier

Citation Formats

References (25)

Similar Records

Related Subjects

Octave-spanning mid-infrared femtosecond OPA in a ZnGeP ₂ pumped by a 2.4 μm Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse amplifier