300 mu J noncollinear optical parametric amplifier in the visible at 1 kHz repetition rate

We demonstrate an order-of-magnitude energy scaling of a white-light seeded noncollinear optical parametric amplifier in the visible. The generated pulses, tunable between 520 and 650 nm with sub-25-fs duration, had energies up to 310 mu J with 20% blue-pump-to-signal energy conversion efficiency at 540 mn. This new ultrafast source will make possible numerous extreme nonlinear optics applications. As a first application, we demonstrate the generation of tunable vacuum ultraviolet pulses.