Investigation of two-beam-pumped noncollinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification for the generation of few-cycle light pulses

We demonstrate a new and compact phi-plane-pumped non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (NOPCPA) scheme for broadband pulse amplification, which is based on two-beam-pumping (TBP) at 532 nm. We employ type-I phase-matching in a 5 mm long BBO crystal with moderate pump intensities to preserve the temporal pulse contrast. Amplification and compression of the signal pulse from 675 nm - 970 nm is demonstrated, which results in the generation of 7.1-fs light pulses containing 0.35 mJ energy. In this context, we investigate the pump-to-signal energy conversion efficiency for TBP-NOPCPA and outline details for few-cycle pulse characterization. Furthermore, it is verified, that the interference at the intersection of the two pump beams does not degrade the signal beam spatial profile. It is theoretically shown that the accumulated OPA phase partially compensates for wave-vector mismatch and leads to extended broadband amplification. The experimental outcome is supported by numerical split-step simulations of the parametric signal gain, including pump depletion and parametric fluorescence. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America