Efficient frequency tripling of 1.06 /spl mu/m, 300-fs chirped pulses

Summary form only given. We report an experimental verification of a previously published concept, which allows us to efficiently frequency-triple broadband pulses using a chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) configuration. The idea is based on the manipulation of pulses with appropriate chirps for maintaining phase matching over the whole bandwidth. It either starts from two differently chirped pulses in a CPA system or from a beam-split stretched output of a CPA amplifier sent onto two different grating pair stages. Although not optimal, this is the configuration used. As a consequence, two different chirps can be created, described as frequency laws versus time.