Abstract

There is currently a need for a stable and widely wavelength tunable femtosecond laser source for time resolved spectroscopic investigations. One approach is to amplify CPM pulses and generate a broad spectral continuum which can be either used directly or reamplified to reach wavelengths other than the fundamental CPM wavelength of 620 nm. Due to the high intensities available with the amplified CPM and continuum, there is potential for parametric mixing in a variety of nonlinear crystals so as to obtain femtosecond pulses in the 1-20 μm wavelength range. We report here preliminary results of the successful mixing of a femtosecond amplified CPM pulse and a femtosecond continuum so as to generate pulses in the mid infrared, at a repetition rate of 8.5 kHz. "Seeded" parametric amplification has been used previously by Jedju and Rothnerg to generate pulses in the 2-5 μm wavelength range using 350 fs pulses at a 10 Hz repetition rate.¹

© 1990 Optical Society of America