OPCPA seeding

A compact wavelength-tunable femtosecond OPCPA system can be built around a front-end in which a spectrally broadened picosecond all-in-fiber oscillator seeds both the picosecond diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) regenerative amplifier and the white-light continuum (WLC) generator.

Because the seed and pump pulses originate from the same oscillator, no separate synchronization is required, which greatly simplifies the system. All amplification stages are parametric, which can increase the temporal contrast of the final femtosecond pulses.

The LightWire FFS fiber seeder delivers broadband pulses at 1030 nm with a spectral bandwidth of up to 15 nm, compressible to less than 200 fs, at repetition rates from 25 kHz to 50 MHz. The output is available compressed or chirped, with a chirp profile that can be tailored to the compressor of the CPA system, and the monolithic all-fiber design runs turn-key with no maintenance.