Picosecond pulse generated supercontinuum as a stable seed for OPCPA

• DOI: 10.1364/ol.42.000843
• Publication Date: 2017-02-10T14:44:01Z
• Authors: Lukáš Indra; František Batysta; Petr Hříbek; Jakub Novák; Zbyněk Hubka; Jonathan T. Green; Roman Antipenkov; Robert Boge; Jack A. Naylon; Pavel Bakule; Bedřich Rus
• Keywords: Supercontinuum; Picosecond; Regenerative amplification; Chirped pulse amplification; Self-phase modulation; Pulse compression

We present a stable supercontinuum (SC) generated in bulk YAG crystal, pumped by 3 ps chirped pulses at 1030 nm. The SC is loose focus geometry 13 cm long allowing for and robust single-filament generation. energy stability exceeds that of the pump laser almost factor 3. Additionally, we show spectrum has long-term coherent compressible compressing portions spectra close to corresponding Fourier limit. This makes picosecond-pulse-driven suitable seed OPCPA amplifiers.