Two-octave mid-infrared pulses via chirp-optimized cascaded intra-pulse difference frequency generation
Intra-pulse difference frequency generation (IDFG) has been widely applied for generating few-cycle carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) stable mid-infrared (MIR) pulses, whose maximal spectral bandwidth reaches around one octave, limited by the phase-matching bandwidth of crystals. Here, we propose and demonstrate a chirp-optimized cascaded IDFG (CC-IDFG) scheme that overcomes the phase-matching bandwidth limitation of nonlinear crystals. By carefully manipulating the chirp of a supercontinuum pulse in 0.5-1 µm, an ultra-broadband pulse in 1-4 µm is generated by CC-IDFG employing cascaded BBO, MgO:LiNbO<sub>3</sub>, and BIBO crystals, which supports a sub-cycle MIR pulse. Our study presents an attractive method for generating ultra-broadband pulses, which is significantly helpful for applications such as arbitrary waveform tailoring, isolated attosecond pulse generation, and ultrafast electron dynamics control in materials.
Authors
- Dandan Hui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6246-9953)
- Yuxi Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2833-6764)
- Bing Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9251-3019)
- Huabao Cao
- Pei-Chi Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8019-5594)
- Wei Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4367-4668)
- Hao Yuan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3269-3326)
- Yahui Ma
- Tongyu Feng
- Yishan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0268-3453)
Institutions
- Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Optics Express
- Published
- 2025-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.566765
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province