High-stability, high-power femtosecond optical parametric amplifier for telecom wavelengths

This paper reports a continuous wave (CW) seeded cascaded femtosecond optical parametric amplification (OPA) system capable of delivering high average power in the telecom band. Pumped by a high-power Yb-fiber femtosecond amplifier operating at 50 MHz repetition rate, the two-stage OPA generates 1547 nm center-wavelength pulses with 120 fs pulse width and 1.8 W average power, achieving a 36% conversion efficiency. Benefiting from the low-noise characteristics of the narrow-linewidth CW seed laser, the output signal pulses exhibit a relative intensity noise integral of 0.35% over [3.3 Hz, 2.5 MHz] and a power fluctuation RMS of 1.06% over 2 h. This high-repetition-rate, high-power, low-noise telecom-band source holds significant potential for applications in laser processing, semiconductor etching, and bioimaging.