Powerful sub-100-fs pulses broadly tunable in the visible from a blue-pumped parametric generator and amplifier

By combining a low-gain single-pass collinear amplifier with a high-gain noncollinear seeder, in which the group velocities are self-matched, we demonstrate highly efficient parametric conversion of frequency-doubled Ti:sapphire pulses of hundreds-microjoule energy. With β-barium borate in both seeder and amplifier, bandwidth-limited signal pulses tunable between 0.46 and 0.66 µm are obtained at a 1-kHz-repetition rate, with duration as short as 78 fs and energy as much as 17 µJ in the visible.