Carrier-envelope phase stable, few-optical-cycle pulses tunable from visible to near IR

We report on the generation of few-optical-cycle pulses broadly tunable in the visible and near infrared with passively stabilized carrier-envelope phase (CEP). The system starts with an infrared optical parametric amplifier in which both pump and seed are derived from an amplified, non-CEP-stabilized Ti:sapphire laser. The passively stabilized idler beam is then spectrally broadened through white-light generation and used to seed a broadband optical parametric amplifier (OPA). Several amplification schemes can be used, including blue-pumped noncollinear OPA and blue-pumped or red-pumped OPA working around degeneracy, allowing for the production of few-optical-cycle light pulses tunable from 500 to 1600 nm. The OPA preserves the CEP stability of the seed. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.