Design and characteristics of a broadband Cr : Forsterite optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier at kHz repetition rates

Abstract

We report on the system design and preliminary experimental results of a non-degenerate optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) operating at kHz repetition rates, based on a Cr:forsterite laser. The gain-bandwidth characteristics for different nonlinear crystals, such as DKDP, KDP, and BBO, were studied for both collinear and noncollinear interactions. According to the theoretical analysis and practical availability, DKDP seems to be the best candidate for a Cr:forsterite-laser-seeded broadband OPCPA. For 1-kHz collinear single-pass amplification in DKDP, the stretched seed pulses at an idler wavelength of 1235 nm were amplified, and signal pulses were simultaneously generated at 935 nm with 532-nm-wavelength pumping. The generated spectral bandwidths amounted to 13 nm and 18 nm for the signal and the idler pulses, respectively