Coherent broadband pulse shaping in the mid-infrared

Summary form only given. We report on the generation in a 100-/spl mu/m thick GaAs crystal of broadband mid-infrared shaped pulses by means of optical rectification of a sequence of two phase-locked chirped visible pulses. Assuming that the second-order susceptibility of this material is constant over the whole spectrum of the exciting pulse and in the case of a plane-wave excitation and of a thin nonlinear material, the straightforward relation E/sub sr/ (/spl omega/) /spl prop/ [i/spl omega/] /spl times/ FT (I/sub exc/(t)) between the Fourier transform of the exciting visible intensity I/sub exc/ and the emitted field E/sub sr/ provides a unique technique for shaping the mid-infrared field simply by controlling the shape of the exciting intensity I/sub exc/(t). We thus achieve a direct control of the infrared emitted field.