Generation of tunable few optical-cycle pulses by visible-to-infrared frequency conversion

Abstract

We demonstrate a simple method for infrared few optical-cycle pulse generation, which is based on collinear visible-to-infrared frequency conversion and involves difference-frequency generation and subsequent two-step optical parametric amplification. The numerical simulations and experiments using BBO crystals show an efficient frequency down conversion of visible ∼20 fs pulses from a commercial blue-pumped noncollinear optical parametric amplifier yielding 1.2–2.4 μm tunable sub-100 μJ pulses with duration of 3 to 5 optical-cycles. The proposed method could be readily extended to generate few optical-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared spectral range (up to 5.5 μm) using, e.g., LiIO3 and LiNbO3 crystals, as demonstrated by the numerical simulations. In these crystals, even shorter, two-optical-cycle mid-infrared pulses could be obtained at particular wavelengths where group velocity matching between the signal and idler waves is achieved.