Control of the effects of crystal dispersion at different orders in the mixing of three phase-matched waves on a 5- to 100-fs time scale

Résumé

A number of manners to obtain first-order achromatic phase matching of both type I and type II are presented and the most advantageous ones are identified to generate high-spectral quality 100-fs pulses by either parametric generation or frequency up-conversion. In the case of frequency-doubling high-energy 5-fs Ti:sapphire pulses, a non-collinear phase-matching I geometry in a b-barium borate crystal cut at 44 deg is devised that should allow high conversion efficiency, virtually without pulse lengthening and intra-pulse frequency chirp due to group-velocity dispersion.