  Advances in the amplification and manipulation of ultrashort laser pulses has
led to revolutions in several areas. Examples include chirped pulse
amplification for generating high peak-power lasers, power-scalable
amplification techniques, pulse shaping via modulation of spatially-dispersed
laser pulses, and efficient frequency-mixing in quasi-phase-matched nonlinear
crystals to access new spectral regions. In this work, we introduce and
demonstrate a new platform for nonlinear optics which has the potential to
combine all of these separate functionalities (pulse amplification, frequency
transfer, and pulse shaping) into a single monolithic device. Moreover, our
approach simultaneously offers solutions to the performance-limiting issues in
the conventionally-used techniques, and supports scaling in power and bandwidth
of the laser source. The approach is based on two-dimensional patterning of
quasi-phase-matching gratings combined with optical parametric interactions
involving spatially dispersed laser pulses. Our proof of principle experiment
demonstrates this new paradigm via mid-infrared optical parametric chirped
pulse amplification of few-cycle pulses.
