Generation of narrow-bandwidth picosecond visible pulses from broadband femtosecond pulses for femtosecond stimulated Raman

To perform time-resolved vibrational structural studies with femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy, it is desirable to produce tunable transform-limited picosecond pulses in the visible from a femtosecond laser system. The authors demonstrate here the generation of ∼36cm−1 bandwidth tunable picosecond pulses across the entire visible spectral range using a narrow-bandwidth optical parametric amplifier with chirped pulse pumping. These pulses are characterized and used to obtain broadband stimulated Raman spectra with 38cm−1 resolution.