Ultrabroad bandwidth of quasi-parametric amplification beyond the phase-matching limit

Abstract

Quasi-parametric amplification (QPA), a variant of optical parametric amplification, can release the phase-matching requirement owing to the introduction of idler dissipation, and thus may support ultrabroad bandwidth. Here we establish the gain-dispersion equation for QPA, which reveals the interplay of signal gain, idler dissipation and phase mismatch. The idler dissipation dramatically enhances the gain bandwidth, which breaks the limit set by phase matching. We theoretically demonstrate that QPA with strong dissipation allows high-efficiency few-cycle pulse amplification in those nonlinear crystals without a magic phase-matching solution.