Applications of continuous-wave deep ultraviolet lasers

A high power continuous wave (cw) deep ultraviolet (UV) source should encounter much use in many areas. Nonlinear frequency conversion using (β-BaB2O4 (BBO) is an attractive way because of rugged nature of the crystal. However low single pass conversion efficiency leads to the use of a resonant technique to achieve higher efficiency at cw output. High power output from a resonantly-doubled lamp-pumped mode-locked source has been demonstrated.1 Intracavity doubling from argon ion laser also gives high power deep UV output.2 However, an all solid-state approach should be advantageous because of compactness, efficiency and reliability.