Compact and highly efficient ultrafast blue light sources: bulk and waveguide approaches to the single pass frequency doubling of femtosecond Cr:LiSAF lasers

We present highly-efficient femtosecond blue light generation from a very simple, compact and potentially robust source. Complementary results from a periodically-poled waveguide suggest that this technique may allow the flexibility of quasi-phasematching in both the spectral and temporal domains to be exploited using compact and efficient femtosecond lasers.