Laser damage threshold and nonlinear optical properties of large aperture elements of YCOB crystal

Large size of YCa4O(BO3)3(YCOB) crystals were grown both by Czochralski and Bridgman methods. Large size elements as large as 60 mm clear aperture were cut and polished with surface flatness of 1/5 wavelength. Optical homogeneity of YCOB crystal was found in the order of 10-6. Laser damage thresholds of several YCOB crystal elements were tested using different laser facilities with different pulse widths or wavelengths, with thresholds varied from 0.8 GW/cm2 to more than 1 TW/cm2. One SHG and two optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) experiments were executed to characterize the nonlinear optical properties of YCOB crystals and the quality of the crystals. The results shown that YCOB had good performance in OPCPA application, especially with low content of parameter florescence. Combined with good NLO performance and possibility to grow large size crystals, YCOB crystal was a good choice for high power OPCPA applications.

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