Sub-two-cycle light pulses at 16 μm from an optical parametric amplifier

Abstract
We generate ultrabroadband pulses, spanning the 12002100nm wavelength range, from an 800nm pumped optical parametric amplifier (OPA) working at degeneracy. We compress the microjoule-level energy pulses to nearly transform-limited 8.5fs duration by an adaptive system employing a deformable mirror. To our knowledge, these are the shortest light pulses generated at 1.6μm.