Ultrafast, Optical Parametric Chirped-pulse Amplification System using a Block of Transparent Material for Pulse Stretching and Compression

We have proposed and demonstrated a very simple and robust femtosecond optical-parametric chirped-pulse amplification scheme in which an even order dispersion of an idler pulse is compensated by passing through an identical positive dispersive material used for temporal stretching a signal pulse. By compressing the idler pulses having a negative chirp in this manner, high power sub-100 fs pulses were successfully obtained with only a transparent glass block used for the stretcher and compressor.