Fourier plane Optical Parametric Amplifier (FOPA)

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The universal dilemma of femtosecond amplifiers is gain narrowing (the more one amplifies a laser pulse, the longer gets its duration) which prevents ultra high power lasers from delivering few-cycle pulses. To overcome this problem, a new amplification concept is proposed. It enables simultaneous up-scaling of peak power and amplified spectral bandwidth (necessary to maintain few-cycle duration). The Fourier plane Optical Parametric Amplifier - FOPA can be operated at any wavelength range of conventional amplification schemes, however, with the capability to amplify a single optical cycle of light. The key idea for amplification of octave-spanning spectra without loss of spectral width is to amplify the broad spectrum "slice by slice". Opposed to traditional schemes where amplification takes place in time domain, we propose to amplify different spectral parts independently of each other in the spectral domain. Therefore, the pulse's input spectrum is spectrally dispersed and then several individual narrowband optical parametric crystals are used whereby each is tuned for optimal amplification of its corresponding spectral slice. The spectral dispersion is carried out according to a 4-f setup which performs an optical Fourier transformation of time domain input pulses into the spectral domain and vice versa. After amplification which takes place in the Fourier plane the pulses are transformed back into the time domain. Furthermore, this setup enables the opportunity to amplify input pulses which can be arbitrarily shaped in amplitude and phase without damage of optics. A laboratory prototype for the FOPA has been demonstrated at the Advanced Laser Light Source delivering 0.12TW sub-two cycle pulses at 1.8 micron wavelength. In the context of this project, we will improve this prototype to make a compact, robust, and automated system that can be integrated with laser sources of end-users and potential customers. This will provide the framework to establish a new spin-off company in Canada that will be dedicated to manufacture the FOPA.