Generation of 30-fs pulses tunable over the visible spectrum

Abstract
The generation of 30-fs pulses of several microjoules of energy, continuously tunable from 420 to 650 nm, is achieved by selective amplification and compression of a continuum that is generated in quartz. The pump pulses are provided by a compact excimer-laser-pumped pulsed dye-laser system operating at 500 nm. The whole arrangement including the final amplifiers uses only a single excimer laser as a pump source. This provides excellent pulse-to-pulse stability of < ±5%.