Generation of Broadband mid-infrared Pulses from an Optical Parametric Amplifier

We generate broadband mid-IR pulses from an 800-nm-driven optical parametric amplifier in LiIO(3). Exploiting its broad phase-matching bandwidth around 1 mu m, we produced 2-mu J idler pulses in the 3-4 mu m range supporting 30-fs transform-limited duration.