Compact 500 nm ultra-broadband seed laser for WNOPCPA prototype facility

A 500 nm ultra-broadband laser covering wavelengths of 700-1200 nm is built as a seed for the prototype facility of a near-single-cycle petawatt laser project that will use wide-angle non-collinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (WNOPCPA). Multiple thin-plate compression and optical parametric amplification are used to create the ultra-broadband spectrum and amplify the newly generated spectra, especially those far away from that of the driving laser, respectively. The driving laser is a sub-picosecond Yb:YAG laser with a full-width bandwidth of ∼20 nm centered at 1030 nm, and the output spectral bandwidth is ∼500 nm (∼700-1200 nm), showing a spectral broadening of ∼25 times.