Four-wave parametric amplification can be extended to the ${\mathrm{TW}/\mathrm{cm}}^2$ regime using femtosecond pump pulses to amplify nearly octave spanning pulses achieving gain greater than 20 ${\mathrm{mm}}^{-1}$, which we call Kerr instability amplification. Cross-polarized wave generation exploits Kerr anisotropy to induce a transient intensity-dependent polarization evolution. In this work we combine Kerr instability amplification with cross-polarized wave generation to simultaneously amplify and rotate the output polarization of a signal beam, and we explore laser and crystal parameters to control the resulting polarization. In 1 mm MgO(100), we amplify linearly polarized light by $2000\times$ orthogonal to the pump and seed polarization. The parametric amplification and polarization rotation offers excellent pulse contrast enhancement for future high-power laser systems. Furthermore, the polarization provides an additional observable to study the nonlinear dynamics occurring in this extreme ultrafast light-matter interaction.

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• Cross-phase modulation
• Nonlinear optical susceptibility
• Photorefractive & Kerr effects
• Third order nonlinear optical processes
• Ultrafast optics
• Ultrafast phenomena