Near-PHz-bandwidth, phase-stable continua generated from a Yb:YAG thin-disk amplifier.

ABSTRACT

We report on the generation of a multi-octave, phase-stable continuum from the output of a YbYAG regenerative amplifier delivering 1-ps pulses with randomly varying carrier-envelope phase (CEP). The intrinsically CEP-stable spectral continuum spans from 450 nm to beyond 2500 nm, covering a spectral range of about 0.6 PHz. The generated coherent broadband light carries an energy of 4 µJ, which can be scaled to higher values if required. The system has been designed and is ideally suited for seeding broadband parametric amplifiers and multichannel synthesizers pumped by picosecond YbYAG amplifiers, obviating the need for active timing synchronization required in previous approaches. The presented concept paves the way to cost-effective, reliable all-YbYAG single-cycle sources with terawatt peak-power and tens-of-Watts average power.