Efficient single-frequency injection-seeded colinear and noncolinear BBO OPOs

The performance of collinear and noncollinear pulsed barium borate optical parametric oscillators is analyzed under third harmonic Nd:YAG pumping. In the collinear case the effects of output coupling, cavity length and pump spotsize on threshold and slope efficiency have been measured and compared to a simple model. Tuning ranges, bandwidths and efficiencies are compared for collinear operation and for both directions of noncollinear operation. For a low pump divergence collinear operation is more efficient, but noncollinear operation is favored for a pump divergence in excess of 4 milliradians. Single frequency OPO operation with less than 250 MHz bandwidth is obtained using a simple new injection seeding technique for both signal and idler. Precise crystal temperature control is used to simultaneously manipulate the gain envelope and mode frequencies, ensuring stable seeding on the strongest mode.

[1]  D. C. Hovde,et al.  High power injection seeded optical parametric oscillator , 1991 .

[2]  James E. Murray,et al.  Single-Cavity Noncollinear Optical Parametric Oscillation , 1969 .

[3]  Mark S. Bowers,et al.  Comparison of a numerical model with measured performance of a seeded, nanosecond KTP optical parametric oscillator , 1995 .

[4]  G. Gurzadyan,et al.  Handbook of nonlinear optical crystals , 1991 .

[5]  Andreas Fix,et al.  Spectral properties of pulsed nanosecond optical parametric oscillators: experimental investigation and numerical analysis , 1996 .

[6]  Tangentially phase-matched efficient difference frequency generation in beta barium borate crystal , 1994 .

[7]  Robert L. Byer,et al.  Optical parametric oscillator threshold and linewidth studies (A) , 1979 .

[8]  D. C. Hanna,et al.  High-efficiency infrared generation by difference-frequency mixing using tangential phase matching , 1992 .

[9]  Brian J. Orr,et al.  Tunable β-barium borate optical parametric oscillator: operating characteristics with and without injection seeding , 1993 .

[10]  W. Bosenberg,et al.  Broadly tunable optical parametric oscillation in β‐BaB2O4 , 1988 .

[11]  B. D. Sinclair,et al.  Comparison of lithium triborate and β-barium borate as nonlinear media for optical parametric oscillators , 1993 .

[12]  M. Dunn,et al.  Efficient, single‐axial mode oscillation of a beta barium borate optical parametric oscillator pumped by an excimer laser , 1993 .

[13]  E. Cassedy,et al.  A theoretical study of injection tuning of optical parametric oscillators , 1979, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

[14]  M. Johnson,et al.  Continuously tunable, injection‐seeded β‐barium borate optical parametric oscillator: Spectroscopic applications , 1991 .

[15]  T. King,et al.  Highly efficient single-longitudinal-mode beta-BaB(2)O(4) optical parametric oscillator with a new cavity design. , 1995, Optics letters.

[16]  David Eimerl,et al.  Optical, mechanical, and thermal properties of barium borate , 1987 .

[17]  E. Wachman,et al.  cw femtosecond pulses tunable in the near‐ and midinfrared , 1991 .

[18]  W. R. Bosenberg,et al.  High-efficiency and narrow-linewidth operation of a two-crystal β-BaB2O4 optical parametric oscillator , 1989 .

[19]  R. Byer,et al.  Barium borate optical parametric oscillator , 1989 .

[20]  J. Zyss,et al.  Noncritical properties of noncollinear phase-matched second-harmonic and sum-frequency generation in 3-methyl-4-nitropyridine-1-oxide , 1991 .

[21]  John E. Bjorkholm,et al.  FREQUENCY CONTROL OF A PULSED PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR BY RADIATION INJECTION , 1969 .

[22]  T. King,et al.  Noncollinear phase matching in a type I barium borate optical parametric oscillator , 1994 .