Low-dispersion, high-gain femtosecond optical pulse amplifier

We demonstrate a novel amplifier for femtosecond optical pulses. The output of a colliding-pulse mode-locked laser is amplified to 0.3 microJ per pulse at a repetition rate of 8 kHz by using 1 W of pump power from a copper-vapor laser. Our high-efficiency amplifier focuses the beam for four gain passes through a thin dye stream that uses a Z configuration with matched focusing. Because of low group-velocity dispersion, the output pulses are only slightly broadened, from 63 to 73 fsec, and may be used directly to generate a white-light continuum without pulse compression after amplification.