Novel method for the angular chirp compensation of passively CEP-stable few-cycle pulses

We demonstrate a novel, energy-efficient, cost-effective simple method for seeding CEP-stable OPCPAs. We couple the CEP-stable idler of a broadband OPCPA into a hollow core Kagome fiber thus compensating for the angular chirp. We obtain either relatively narrow bandwidths with ∼36% coupling efficiency or quarter-octave spanning bandwidths with ∼2.2% coupling efficiency. We demonstrate spectral compressibility, good beam quality and CEP stability. Our source is an ideal seed for high-energy, high-average power, CEP-stable few-cycle OPCPA pulses around 2 µm, which can drive the generation of coherent soft X-ray radiation in the water window spectral region via HHG.