Butler, T.P.T.P.ButlerLilienfein, N.N.LilienfeinXu, J.J.XuNagl, N.N.NaglHofer, C.C.HoferGerz, D.D.GerzMak, K.F.K.F.MakGaida, C.C.GaidaHeuermann, T.T.HeuermannGebhardt, M.M.GebhardtLimpert, J.J.LimpertKrausz, F.F.KrauszPupeza, I.I.Pupeza2022-03-062022-03-062019https://publica.fraunhofer.de/handle/publica/26743910.1088/2515-7647/ab4976We present a source of brilliant mid-infrared radiation, seamlessly covering the wavelength range between 1.33 and 18 mm (7500-555 cm−1) with three channels, employing broadband nonlinear conversion processes driven by the output of a thulium-fiber laser system. The high-average-power femtosecond frontend delivers a 50 MHz train of 250 fs pulses spectrally centered at 1.96 mm. The three parallel channels employ soliton self-compression in a fused-silica fiber, supercontinuum generation in a ZBLAN fiber, and difference-frequency generation in GaSe driven by soliton self-compressed pulses. The total output enables spectral coverage from 1.33 to 2.4 mm, from 2.4 to 5.2 mm, and from 5.2 to 18 mm with 4.5 W, 0.22 W and 0.5 W, respectively. This spatially coherent source with a footprint of less than 4 m2 exceeds the brilliance of 3rd-generation synchrotrons by more than three orders of magnitude over 90% of the bandwidth.en620journal article