Efficient collinear frequency tripling of femtosecond laser with compensation of group velocity delay

This paper demonstrates an approach that negative uniaxial crystal has a relative anomalous dispersion effect which can compensate group velocity delay, and applies this approach to nonlinear frequency conversion of an ultrafast laser field. High efficiency of the third harmonic generation is experimentally fulfilled by adopting a collinear configuration of doubing-compensation-tripling system. Through finely adjusting the incident angle and optical axis direction of the compensation plate, it obtains ultraviolet (UV) output energy of 0.32~mJ centered at 270~nm with spectral bandwidth of 2~nm when input beam at 800~nm was 70~fs pulse duration and 6~mJ pulse energy which was extracted from Ti:sapphire laser system by a diaphragm, corresponding to an 800-to-270~nm conversion efficiency of 5.3% and a factor-of-1.6 improvement in the third harmonic generation of UV band in comparison with a general conventional configuration. Furthermore, when the full energy of 18~mJ from a Ti:sapphire laser system was used and optimized, the UV emission could reach 0.83~mJ.