A simple and robust ultrafast, high-peak-power 5-μm laser source for pumping a dielectric photonic structure for high-gradient electron acceleration has been designed and is being constructed. The 5-μm laser source consists of two components: (1) a type-II-BBO-based 2.05-μm optical parametric amplifier (OPA) as a pump source, and (2) a type-I-ZGP-based 5-μm OPA to produce mJ-class, <100 fs pulses. Our supercontinuum-seeded two-stage 2.05-μm OPA is pumped by a Ti:sapphire amplifier and produces pulse energy of ～2.2 mJ with a pulse duration of 87 fs. Carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization is passively established for 2.05 μm pulses in our OPA design. A modified design of seed pulse generation for the 5-μm OPA based on several cascaded parametric processes can also result in CEP-stable operation for 5-μm amplified pulses.
展开▼
