Tunable femtosecond near-IR source by pumping an OPA directly with a 90 MHz Yb:fiber source.

Up to 400 mW of near-IR (1370-1500 nm) femtosecond pulses are generated from an optical parametric amplifier directly driven by a Yb:fiber oscillator delivering 100 fs pulses at 1036 nm. The process is seeded by a stable supercontinuum obtained from a photonic crystal fiber. We use a single pass through a 3 mm, magnesium oxide-doped, periodically poled LiNbO₃ downconversion crystal to produce a near-IR pulse train with a remarkable power stability of 1.4% (RMS) during one hour. Tuning is achieved by the temperature and the poling period of the nonlinear crystal.