Enhanced-efficiency of a mid-IR intrapulse difference-frequency generation

Quentin Bournet (1) , Florent Guichard (1) , Michele Natile (2, 1) , Yoann Zaouter (1) , Frédéric Druon (3) , Marc Hanna (3) , Patrick Georges (3)

1 Amplitude Systèmes
2 LIDYL - Laboratoire Interactions, Dynamiques et Lasers (ex SPAM)
3 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Lasers

We report on an ultra-broadband tunable mid-IR source delivering 110 nJ, 64 fs-long pulses at 250 kHz repetition rate. The experiment starts with a Yb-doped fiber amplifier system delivering 200 μJ, 300 fs-long pulses, followed by a 70% high-efficiency dual-stage nonlinear compression based on a multipass cell and a 1 m-long capillary filled with argon. The 9.5 fs-long resulting pulses drive intrapulse difference-frequency generation (iDFG) in a 1 mm-thick LiGaS2 crystal and a specially designed waveplate is used prior to this crystal to further enhance the iDFG yield. This source paves the way for new experiments in 2D ultrafast spectroscopy.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Quentin Bournet, Florent Guichard, Michele Natile, Yoann Zaouter, Frédéric Druon, et al.. Enhanced-efficiency of a mid-IR intrapulse difference-frequency generation. Nonlinear Frequency Generation and Conversion: Materials and Devices XXI, Photonics West 2022, SPIE proceedings, 11985, pp.1198503, 2022, ⟨10.1117/12.2608180⟩. ⟨hal-04322170⟩