Femtosecond sources from the UV to mid-IR

The goal of this program is to develop novel femtosecond sources based on synchronously-pumped optical parametric oscillators to cover spectral regions that are inaccessible to conventional mode-locked ultrafast lasers. We exploit novel birefringent and quasi-phase-matched nonlinear materials in combination with ultrafast solid-state lasers and deploy innovative pumping schemes together with cascaded internal frequency conversion techniques to achieve femtosecond pulse generation from 200 nm in the UV, across the visible, to 8 m in the mid-IR. Applications of the technology include optical microscopy in biophotonics and nanoscience, frequency comb generation and spectroscopy.