Near-fully efficient, back-conversion suppressed optical parametric amplification via a secondary nonlinear wave-mixing channel

摘要

Back-conversion in parametric amplification can be suppressed over the full spatiotemporal pump profile by means of a simultaneously phase-matched wave-mixing process, a general concept allowing nearly full conversion efficiency. A device for ultrafast chirped pulse amplification based on simultaneous parametric amplification and second harmonic generation is presented, and is based on a novel quasi-phase matching scheme for simultaneous phase matching of multiple three-wave mixing processes. A full spatiotemporal analysis predicts pump energy conversion up to 65% for femtosecond pulses and as high as 80% for picosecond pulses.