We present a comparative experimental study of supercontinuum generation in undoped KGW and YVO4 crystals pumped with near-IR femtosecond laser pulses. We demonstrate that KGW and YVO4 crystals, compared to commonly used sapphire and YAG, have significantly lower supercontinuum generation thresholds, produce remarkably larger red-shifted spectral broadenings and exhibit durable damage-free long-term operation at 2 MHz and 76 MHz repetition rates. Our results show that KGW and YVO4 crystals are excellent nonlinear materials for high repetition rate infrared supercontinuum generation which could be used for the design of high average power optical parametric amplifiers as well as for the development of ultrafast ultrafast spectroscopic and high-speed imaging systems.
We present a comparative study of supercontinuum generation in sapphire, yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) and potassium gadolinium tungstate (KGW) crystals with 210 fs, 1030 nm pulses from an amplified Yb:KGW laser. We demonstrate that KGW crystal has the lowest supercontinuum generation threshold, negligible bulk heating due to low nonlinear losses and exhibits long-term damage-free operation at 2 MHz repetition rate without any need for translation of the crystal. Our results prove that KGW crystal is an excellent nonlinear material for high average power infrared supercontinuum generation and for seeding high repetition rate fundamental harmonics-pumped ultrafast optical parametric amplifiers.
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