Scaling of a 2µm few-cycle OPCPA system to 100 kHz repetition rate and high average powers

A high average power ultrafast short-IR OPCPA system was realized. Operated at up to 100kHz pulse repetition frequency, record average powers of 6W and 7.5W were generated for few-cycle to 10s femtoseconds pulses at 2μm and 1.5μm carrier wavelengths, respectively. Implications of thermal effects and nonlinearities are discussed. The study paves the way towards multi-10 Watt few-cycle OPCPA systems at 2μm, e.g. for high field physics applications.