Abstract

Tunable sources of short pulses in the mid-IR are useful for a number of spectroscopic and materials processing applications, due to the presence of characteristic vibrational absorptions of organic materials in this spectral region. Optical parametric generation offers a simple route to frequency down-conversion of efficient near-IR short-pulse sources, avoiding the need for the synchronous pumping of an optical cavity in an optical parametric oscillator, but requiring relatively high pump intensities to reach threshold. Typically, this has been achieved using solid-state near-IR pump lasers such as Ti:sapphire or Yb-doped tungstates [1], or using fiber laser systems employing chirped pulse amplification [2]. Here we demonstrate an OPG pumped by an Yb-fiber MOPA system employing simple direct amplification in a nearly all-fiber configuration.

© 2015 IEEE