Abstract

Repetition rate scaling of optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems, while highly desirable for increased photon flux, requires average pump power scaling as well to maintain pump peak intensities. Alternatively, we have proposed cavity-enhanced OPCPA (C-OPCPA) [1] to boost nonlinear drive using moderate average power sources. In C-OPCPA, pump pulses are coherently combined in a low finesse enhancement cavity transparent to signal and idler containing an OPA crystal in which a signal is amplified. If the pump has a narrow bandwidth (BW) and the seed is sufficiently chirped, the cavity passively shapes the intra-cavity pump profile in the time domain to attain more optimal conversion and increased BW, overcoming limitations set by the bell-shaped pump intensity profile and the time-varying wave-vector mismatch of the interacting pulses. We previously simulated octave-spanning gain [1] showing the potential of this system.

© 2011 Optical Society of America