Patent ID: 8049956

Claim:
An Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) apparatus, comprising: an optical pulse stretcher for outputting chirped laser light using odd-order dispersion; a pump laser for outputting pump laser light; an optical parametric amplification unit for receiving the pump laser light and the chirped laser light (signal), amplifying the signal using the pump laser light, and generating an idler; an optical signal separation unit for separating output light of the optical parametric amplification unit into the signal, the idler and remaining light (pump); and an optical pulse compressor for compensating for pulse chirping caused by the odd-order dispersion that is imparted by the optical pulse stretcher, thus temporally compressing together the signal and the idler, which overlap each other, wherein the following relational expression is satisfied upon performing collinear phase matching, <relational expression> λ s ≈2λ p ≈λ i where λ s is a wavelength of the signal, λ p is a wavelength of the pump, and λ i is a wavelength of the idler.