Mid-infrared frequency domain optical parametric amplifier.

We report on an optical architecture delivering sub-120 femtosecond laser pulses of 20 µJ tunable from 5.5 µm to 13 µm in the mid-infrared range (mid-IR). The system is based on a dual-band frequency domain optical parametric amplifier (FOPA) optically pumped by a Ti:Sapphire laser and amplifying 2 synchronized femtosecond pulses each with a widely tunable wavelength around 1.6 and 1.9 µm respectively. These amplified pulses are then combined in a GaSe crystal to produce the mid-IR few-cycle pulses by means of difference frequency generation (DFG). The architecture provides a passively stabilized carrier-envelope phase (CEP) whose fluctuations has been characterized to 370 mrad RMS.