Production of 30-fs pulses tunable throughout the visible spectral region by a new technique in optical parametric amplification

Abstract

A multipass optical parametric amplif ier is pumped by a 250-kHz microjoule-level Ti:sapphire regenerative amplif ier system. Tuning each pass of the amplif ier to provide gain for slightly different spectral regions of a white-light continuum source produces broadband pulses that may be compressed to less than 30 fs.