Patent ID: 8384990

Claim:
An apparatus for producing broad-bandwidth frequency combs in the near-infrared and mid-infrared frequency ranges, the apparatus comprising: a pump laser configured to produce femtosecond pulses of light having a pulse repetition rate; and an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) resonator that is coupled to the pump laser and that has a length configured to facilitate synchronous OPO pumping by matching a roundtrip time of the pulses of light within the OPO resonator with the pulse repetition rate of the pump laser, the OPO resonator including; a nonlinear optical gain element inside the OPO resonator, the nonlinear optical gain element configured to provide broad-bandwidth parametric amplification; and a set of optical elements configured to direct the pulses of light from the femtosecond pump laser to the nonlinear optical gain element and to direct subharmonic frequencies of the light out of the OPO resonator to produce the broad-bandwidth, 1000-nm-wide at 20-db level, frequency combs.