Femtosecond high-contrast pulses from a parametric generator pumped by the self-compressed second harmonic of a Nd:glass laser

Nearly transform-limited femtosecond pulses tunable from 635 to 3000 nm were generated by a traveling-wave type II phase-matching barium borate parametric generator pumped by the self-compressed second harmonic of a Nd:glass laser. A total conversion efficiency of 10% with output pulses as short as 200 fs has been achieved. Numerical simulation indicated that the relative amount of energy contained in the output pulse wings was reduced by ~4 × 104 compared with that in the pump.