Generation of broadband mid-infrared and ultraviolet pulses from optical parametric amplifiers

Here we present two different Optical Parametric Amplifers. The former OPA amplifes near-IR broadband pulses with narrowband 800 nm pulses in a PPSLT crystal, generating mid-IR idler pulses with central wavelength tunable around 3 um and bandwidth of about 40 THz. Those pulses can be compressed to sub two optical cycles, obtaining a pulse duration of 20 fs. The latter OPA generates UV pulses through sum-frequency generation in BBO crystal of broadband visible and narrowband 800 nm pulses. UV pulses have central wavelength tunable from 320 nm to 380 nm and bandwidth up to 70 THz, supporting 7 fs transform-limited duration. Then we present a pulse characterization technique that allows to fully reconstruct the electric field of ultrafast UV pulses through parametric down-conversion in BBO crystal.