Lithium triborate picosecond optical parametric oscillator (original) (raw)
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Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 1993
ABSTRACT We report on an investigation of a singly resonant picosecond optical parametric oscillator in a noncollinear configuration for which we alternatively used β-barium borate and lithium triborate in a type-I phase-matching configuration tunable from 407 to 2780 nm and from 452 and 1650 nm, respectively. The parametric oscillator was synchronously pumped by the third harmonic of a passive negative-feedback actively-passively mode-locked Nd:YAG laser-amplifier system, and long and flat trains of short bandwidth-limited 9-ps pulses were produced. We obtained conversion efficiency into the idler wave (at 900 nm) of as high as 10% and overall efficiency as high as 26%. We present a numerical model of the operation that agrees very well with the experimental results. The simplicity and ruggedness are the main strengths of this source when high-power conversion capability and wide tunability are the main requirements.
Journal of The Optical Society of America B-optical Physics, 1993
We report on an investigation of a singly resonant picosecond optical parametric oscillator in a noncollinear configuration for which we alternatively used -barium borate and lithium triborate in a type-I phasematching configuration tunable from 407 to 2780 nm and from 452 and 1650 nm, respectively. The parametric oscillator was synchronously pumped by the third harmonic of a passive negative-feedback activelypassively mode-locked Nd:YAG laser-amplifier system, and long and flat trains of short bandwidth-limited 9-ps pulses were produced. We obtained conversion efficiency into the idler wave (at 900 nm) of as high as 10% and overall efficiency as high as 26%. We present a numerical model of the operation that agrees very well with the experimental results. The simplicity and ruggedness are the main strengths of this source when high-power conversion capability and wide tunability are the main requirements.
Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 1995
The design and the operating characteristics of a high-repetition-rate, singly resonant picosecond optical parametric oscillator based on temperature-tuned LiB 3 O 5 and synchronously pumped by a self-mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser at 81 MHz are described. It is shown that LiB 3 O 5 is an excellent nonlinear material candidate for parametric generation of ultrashort pulses because of its broad tunability, small spatial and temporal walk-off, wide acceptance bandwidths, and low dispersion. With a 30-mm-long LiB 3 O 5 crystal cut for noncritical type-I phase matching, average output powers of as much as 325 mW have been obtained at 1.8 times the 650-mW threshold. We demonstrate continuous tuning from 1.15 to 2.26 mm with a single crystal, limited by the tunability of the Ti:sapphire pump laser. For 1.8-ps input pump pulses, transform-limited signal pulses with durations of 1-1.2 ps and idler pulses with durations of 2-2.2 ps have been generated over 1.2-2.2 mm without requiring dispersion compensation.
Femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled lithium niobate
Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 1998
We describe a femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled lithium niobate and pumped by a self-mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. Signal and idler outputs almost continuously tunable from 975 nm to 4.55 m were generated by a combination of grating tuning and cavity-length tuning, and an explanation of the tuning properties is given in terms of the gain bandwidth. A threshold of 45 mW was measured and, in the absence of optimized output coupling, signal powers of 90 mW and idler powers of 70 mW were obtained, with 140 mW of green light at 540 nm generated by phase-matched frequency doubling of the signal. Dispersion compensation produced near-transform-limited signal pulses of duration 140 fs. Observations regarding temperature tuning and pump depletion are also presented.
Applied Physics Letters, 2001
We present experimental evidence of continuous-wave self-pumped parametric oscillation in Yb 3ϩ -doped periodically poled lithium niobate co-doped with MgO. A single bulk crystal of periodically poled lithium niobate containing Yb 3ϩ laser-active ions performs as a singly resonant parametric oscillator generating a signal wave at 1360 nm. The optical parametric oscillator is intracavity pumped by the laser emission at 1063 nm produced by the Yb 3ϩ ions in the crystal. The whole system is end pumped at 980 nm.
Can solitary waves form in a lithium triborate optical parametric oscillator?
2005
We investigate the possibility of solitary wave formation in a singly resonant synchronously pumped lithium triborate based optical parametric oscillator for both femtosecond and picosecond pump pulses. The influence of the cavity parameters, pump irradiance, crystal length and desynchronization between pump and resonated wave on the solitary wave formation is investigated in detail. In the femtosecond regime, for a wide range of pump durations, the width of the solitary wave formed in the cavity is inverse proportional to the pump amplitude when pumping the cavity with the same energy. Stable femtosecond pulses have been shown to emanate from the optical parametric oscillator even at small anomalous and normal signal dispersions. In the picosecond pumped cavity, for moderate peak power, a 5-fold compression may be achieved.
IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, 2004
We conducted a series of passively-switched Nd:YAG laser pumped optical parametric generation, amplification, and oscillation experiments in monolithic periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals. Double-pass optical parametric generation with an effective gain length of 10 cm in a PPLN crystal was performed in comparison with single-pass operation in the same crystal. By seeding a PPLN optical parametric amplifier with a distributed feedback (DFB) diode laser, we produced 200-ps transform-limited laser pulses at 1549.6 nm and observed parametric gain competition at different pump levels. For optical parametric oscillations, we first demonstrated 22% power efficiency from a 2.4-cm intrinsic-cavity PPLN optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 4.2-ns, 10-kW passively-switched Nd:YAG laser. Preliminary studies on DFB optical parametric oscillators in PPLN are mentioned. The temporal and spectral properties of these optical parametric generators, amplifiers, and oscillators are characterized and discussed.
Applied Optics, 1999
We report on a rugged all-solid-state laser source of near-IR radiation in the range of 1461-1601 nm based on a high-power Nd:YVO 4 laser that is mode locked by a semiconductor saturable Bragg reflector as the pump source of a synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator with a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. The system produces 34-ps pulses with a high repetition rate of 235 MHz and an average output power of 1 W. The relatively long pulses lead to wide cavity detuning tolerances. The comparatively narrow spectral bandwidth of Ͻ15 GHz is suitable for applications such as pollutant detection.
Design, optimization, and characterization of a narrow-bandwidth optical parametric oscillator
Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 1999
The design, optimization, and performance of a narrow-bandwidth high-repetition-rate singly resonant picosecond optical parametric oscillator, based on a noncritical phase-matched lithium triborate crystal and synchronously pumped by the second harmonic of a mode-locked Nd:YLF laser, is described. The spectral bandwidth of the signal output is reduced with an intracavity birefringent filter to 0.06 nm. Furthermore, the filter allowed fast scanning of the output wavelength within the phase-matching bandwidth. A maximum average signal output of 1.6 W in pulses with a duration of 22 ps was obtained when the optical parametric oscillator was pumped four times above threshold with a 4-W pump source. With the present mirror set the signal and the idler wavelengths were tunable from, respectively, 740 to 930 nm and 1220 to 1830 nm. The total external power conversion efficiency was better than 55%.