Optical parametric oscillators for high pulse energy and high average power operation based on large aperture periodically poled KTP and RTA

We report on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) based on large aperture periodically poled KTiOPO₄ (PPKTP) and RbTiOAsO₄ (PPRTA) pumped with high pulse energy and high average power Q-switched solid-state lasers. The OPOs were pumped with 1064-nm pulses of a diode-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser at 20 kHz repetition rate. The emitted signal wavelengths were 1.72 μm and 1.58 μm and the idler wavelengths were 2.79 μm and 3.26 μm, respectively. Pumping the PPKTP OPO with 7.2 W and the PPRTA OPO with 8 W average power, 2 W and 1.3 W total OPO output powers were generated. Two-dimensional measurements of the total OPO output power, the signal wavelength and the signal bandwidth in dependence on the crystal location indicated a good uniformity of the quasiphasematching structure over the entire 3-mm-thick crystals. This allowed pumping with larger pump beams and therefore with pulse energies of tens of millijoules. Pumping with different flash-lamp-pumped lasers, good OPO performance and high output pulse energies could be achieved for all pump lasers. Maximum input pulse energies of 56 mJ gave output pulse energies of as much as 18 mJ. The temperature tuning behaviors of both OPOs were measured, showing excellent agreement with calculated temperature tuning curves. New equations for temperature dispersion in RTA are presented. These results show that large-aperture PPKTP and PPRTA crystals are well suited for tunable nanosecond OPO operation with multi-watt average pump power and several tens of millijoules pump pulse energies. Received: 7 September 2001 / Published online: 7 November 2001     

Tunable, high-power, narrow-band picosecond IR radiation by optical parametric amplification in KTP

We report on an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) based on two potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) crystals in a walk-off compensating geometry. An Nd:YLF regenerative amplifier at a 1-kHz repetition rate serves as the pump source. The seed beam is delivered by a synchronously pumped frequency-stabilized optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN). At pump intensities of about 7 GW/cm² large amplification factors of more than 10⁴ were achieved, resulting in pulse energies of more than 450 μJ and 350 μJ for the signal and idler pulses, respectively, at a 1-kHz repetition rate. In the saturation regime the time–bandwidth product increases from two to three times the Fourier limit, with a pulse duration of 105 ps and a bandwidth of 12.7 GHz at the highest intensities employed. Received: 2 November 2001 / Published online: 14 March 2002     

High-efficiency,high-repetition-rate,temperature-tuning optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate

We report a compact and viable source of high-efficiency, high-repetition-rate, temperature-tuning, mid-IR optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate (PPMgOLN) pumped by a homemade high power AOM Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ laser centered at 1.064 μm. With an optimal plane-concave resonator configuration, average output power of 5.7 W at 2.73 μm was obtained when the pump power was 25 W at the repetition rate of 80 kHz. The conversion efficiency from the 1.064 μm laser to the 2.73 μm laser was 22.8%. Temperature tuning of the OPO yielded a signal wavelength range from 1.67 to 1.75 μm and an idler wavelength in the range of 2.72 to 2.92 μm.     

A compact,widely tunable intracavity PPLN optical parameter oscillator driven by an Nd:YAG/Cr:YAG composite crystal laser

Based on periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN), a mini intracavity optical parameter oscillator (IOPO) driven by an diode-end-pumped composite Nd³⁺:YAG/Cr⁴⁺:YAG laser was demonstrated. The PPLN wafer has 20 domain reversal periods from 27.8 to 31.6 μm with a step of 0.2 μm between the neighbor periods. The output signal laser of OPO can be widely tunable in the range of 1402–1676 nm by changing the period at a certain temperature of 50°C. Under the diode pump power of 14 W, the maximum average output power of 600 mW at 1534 nm with pulse width of 2.0 ns and repetition rate of 16 kHz was obtained, corresponding to a peak power of 18.7 kW and a single pulse energy of 37.5 μJ, respectively.     

High-power mid-infrared tunable optical parametric oscillator based on 3-mm-thick PPMgCLN

The experimental results of a high-power tunable mid-IR laser are presented. The optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with a 3-mm-thick PPMgCLN crystal was pumped by a 1.064 μm pulse laser. When the pump power of the 1.064 μm laser was 151 W at 10 kHz, and the operating temperature of the PPMgCLN with 5% MgO doping was 100°C, average output power of 23.7 W at 3.91 μm was obtained with a slope efficiency of 18.2% for the idler resonant OPO. The variation of the 3.91 μm output power was about ±4% in 10 min continuous operation. The beam quality factor M ² was less than 2.6. The average output power of 27.4 W at 3.91 μm was also obtained with 151 W pump power and the slope efficiency of 20.9% for the signal resonant OPO by changing the coating parameters of the OPO cavity mirrors. The mid-IR wavelength tunability of 3.7–4.0 μm can be achieved by adjusting the temperature of a 29 μm period PPMgCLN crystal from 200 to 30°C.     

Mid-infrared ZGP OPO pumped by near-degenerate narrowband type-I PPKTP parametric oscillator

The total pulse energy of the signal and idler in a near-degenerate type-I periodically poled KTiOPO₄ (PPKTP) optical parametrical oscillator (OPO) was spectrally confined within a 2 nm spectral bandwidth at 2.13 μm. This was achieved by using a volume Bragg grating as the output coupler. Both the signal and the idler from the PPKTP OPO were then simultaneously used to pump a mid-infrared ZnGeP₂ (ZGP) OPO. The 2 nm bandwidth was narrower than the ZGP crystal acceptance bandwidth and, thus, made efficient conversion in the second OPO possible. A total slope efficiency of 10% from 1.06 μm to the 3.5–5 μm region was demonstrated, generating 250 μJ in the mid-IR with only 3.6 mJ of 1.06 μm pump energy. This corresponds to a Nd:YAG pump to mid-IR conversion efficiency of 7%. PACS 42.65.Yj; 42.72.Ai; 42.40.Eq     

All-solid-state cw mode-locked picosecond KTiOAsO4 (KTA) optical parametric oscillator

4 (KTA) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) synchronously pumped by a cw diode-pumped mode-locked Nd:YVO₄ oscillator–amplifier system. The laser system (pumped by 84 W of cw 808-nm diode radiation) generates 7-ps-long pulses at 1.064 μm with a repetition rate of 83.4 MHz and an average power of 29 W. The OPO, synchronously pumped by the 1.064-μm laser pulses, consists of a 15-mm-long KTA crystal (cut for type II noncritical phase-matching) in a folded signal resonant linear resonator. The average powers of the 1.54-μm signal radiation and the 3.47-μm idler radiation are 14.6 W and 6.4 W, respectively. The total OPO output of 21 W corresponds to an internal efficiency of 75%. The experimental investigations include measurements of the OPO output power (and its dependence on the pump power, the transmission of the output coupler, and the resonator length) and of the pulse properties (such as pulse duration and spectral width). The measured results are in good agreement with the predictions of a numerical analysis based on a split-step Fourier method. Received: 4 May 1998     

High-power,high-quality ZGP OPO pumped by a Tm,Ho:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

We report a ZGP OPO system capable of producing >6 W at a signal wavelength of 3.80 μm and an idler wavelength of 4.45 μm. The pumping source is the Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser operated at 2.049 μm with an M ² of 1.07. The ZGP OPO generated a total combined output power of 6.1 W at signal wavelength and idler wavelength under pumping power of 18.3 W, and an M ² of 1.7 for OPO output was obtained.     

High-efficiency mid-infrared laser from synchronous optical parametric oscillation and amplification based on a single MgO:PPLN crystal

This paper presents a specially designed optical parametric oscillator (OPO) which achieved high-efficiency mid-infrared laser of 2.83 μm. The cascaded nonlinear interactions of OPO and optical parametric amplifier (OPA) were simultaneously realized in a single MgO:PPLN crystal. The signal oscillation of 1.70 μm was used to pump a secondary parametric process that resulted in amplification of the idler laser of 2.83 μm. When the MgO:PPLN crystal with a grating period of 31.2 μm was pumped by a 1.064 μm laser and operated at 148°C, the quasi-phase-matching of both OPO and OPA could be simultaneously achieved. Average output power of 7.68 W at 2.83 μm was obtained for 25 W of pump at 7 kHz. The power conversion efficiency of 2.83 μm laser was 30.7%, which was evidently higher than common OPOs.     

Synchronously pumped femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on AgGaSe2 tunable from 2 μm to 8 μm

The operation of a continuous-wave mode-locked silver gallium selenide (AgGaSe₂) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is reported. The OPO was synchronously excited by 120-fs-long pulses of 1.55-μm radiation at a repetition rate of 82 MHz. The 1.55-μm radiation is generated by a noncritically phasematched cesium-titanyl-arsenate (CTA)-OPO pumped by a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The AgGaSe₂-OPO generates signal and idler radiation in the range from 1.93 μm to 2.49 μm and from 4.1 μm to 7.9 μm, respectively. Up to 67 mW of signal wave output power has been obtained. The experimentally determined pulse duration and chirp parameters are in reasonable agreement with results from a numerical model taking into account group velocity mismatch, group velocity dispersion, self phase modulation, and chirp enhancement. Received: 6 August 1999 / Revised version: 4 October 1999 / Published online: 3 November 1999     

High-power picosecond LiB3O5 optical parametric oscillators tunable in the blue spectral range

The paper reports on an experimental investigation and numerical analysis of noncritically and critically phasematched LiB₃O₅ (LBO) optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) synchronously pumped by the third harmonic of a cw diode-pumped mode-locked Nd:YVO₄ oscillator–amplifier system. The laser system generates 9.0 W of 355-nm mode-locked radiation with a pulse duration of 7.5 ps and a repetition rate of 84 MHz. The LBO OPO, synchronously pumped by the 355-nm pulses, generates a signal wave tunable in the blue spectral range 457–479 nm. With a power of up to 5.0 W at 462 nm and 1.7 W at 1535 nm the conversion efficiency is 74%. The OPO is characterized experimentally by measuring the output power (and its dependence on the pump power, the transmission of the output coupler and the resonator length) and the pulse properties (such as pulse duration and spectral width). Also the beam quality of the resonant and nonresonant waves is investigated. The measured results are compared with the predictions of a numerical analysis for Gaussian laser and OPO beams. In addition to the blue-signal output visible-red 629-nm radiation is generated by sum-frequency mixing of the 1.535-μm infrared idler wave with the residual 1.064-μm laser radiation. A power of 1.25 W of 1.535-μm idler radiation and 5.7 W of 1.064-μm laser light generated a red 629-nm output power of 2.25 W. Received: 2 February 2000 / Revised version: 28 July 2000 / Published online: 22 November 2000     

Synchronously pumped femtosecond optical parametric oscillator of congruent and stoichiometric MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate

A synchronously pumped femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on congruent MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate (c-MgO:PPLN) is reported. The system, operating at room temperature, was pumped by a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The wavelengths of the signal and idler waves were tuned from 870 nm to 1.54 μm and 1.58 to 5.67 μm, respectively, by changing the pump wavelength, the grating period or the cavity length. Pumped by 1.1 W of 755 nm laser radiation, the OPO generated 310 mW of 1080 nm radiation. This signal output corresponds to a total conversion efficiency of 50%. Without dispersion compensation the OPO generated phase-modulated signal pulses of 200 fs duration. Besides the OPO of c-MgO:PPLN, an OPO of stoichiometric (s) MgO:PPLN was investigated. Because of the reduced sensitivity to photorefractive damage, both crystals allowed efficient OPO operation at room temperature. Received: 19 August 2002 / Revised version: 11 December 2002 / Published online: 19 March 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +49-631/205-3906, E-mail: andres@physik.uni-kl.de     

Effect of resonator length on ZnGeP<Subscript>2</Subscript> doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator pumped by a Tm,Ho:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

The effect of resonator length on ZnGeP₂ doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator was reported in this letter. With the employment of a Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser as the pump source at 2.05 μm, we have found that there are obvious peaks of the output power when the resonator lengths are matched to the length of the pump source. The ZGP OPO can generate a maximum output power of 4.27 W at 3.80 μm signal and 4.45 μm idler when the resonator length matches that of the pump source.     

High-Power,high-repetition-rate operation of a period-continuously-tunable optical parametric oscillator at 3.78–4.62 μm based on a fan-out periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate

We present a period-continuously-tunable optical parametric oscillator based on a fan-out MgO:PPLN with a grating period range from 26.9 to 29.5 μm. The OPO was pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with a repetition of 10 kHz. With a grating period of 29.3 μm and 22.0 W pump power, the idler output power at 3.78 μm arrived at 3.40 W. With a period of 27.1 μm and 13.5 W pump, the idler output at 4.58 μm arrived at 0.36 W. This is, to our best knowledge, the highest average power for pulsed OPO operating near 4.5 μm based on PPLN or MgO:PPLN. By translating the fan-out MgO:PPLN, the idler wavelength was tuned continuously from 3.78 to 4.62 μm.     

8.30 μm singly resonant ZnGeP2 optical parametric oscillators pumped by a Tm,Ho:GdVO4 laser

A single resonator 8.30 μm ZnGeP₂ (ZGP) optical parametric oscillators (OPO) was reported in the paper. The OPO was pumped by a 10.2-W Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser at 8 kHz in a Q-switch mode, a 170-mW idler was obtained at 8.30 μm, and the output power of the idler and signal wave was 1.0 W, corresponding to an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 10.3% and a slope efficiency of 20.9%. Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser was pumped by a 30-W fiber-coupled laser diode (LD) at the center wavelength of 801 nm. The output wavelength of Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser was at 2.05 μm, and the energy per pulse of 1.28 mJ in 18 ns was achieved at 8 kHz with the peak power of 71.1 kW.     

Highly stable and efficient KTP-based intracavity optical parametric oscillator with a diode-pumped passively Q-switched laser

We present in this paper a highly stable and efficient KTP-based intracavity optical parametric oscillator with a diode-end-pumped Nd:YVO₄/Cr:YAG passively Q-switched laser. At the incident diode pump power of 4 W, the signal (1.57 μm) and idler (3.29 μm) average output powers up to 580 and 100 mW, respectively, have been achieved. The corresponding conversion efficiency from the input diode pump power to the output signal power is 14.5%, while that to the total OPO output (signal+idler) reaches 17%. To the best of our knowledge, these are the highest conversion efficiencies reported to date. After more than four hours of investigation, the OPO power stability better than 2% has been obtained. In addition, efficient cavity dumping of the IOPO has inevitably led to the short pulse duration (1.6 ns) and high peak power output (8.3 kW) at the signal wave. Additionally, the amplitude and repetition rate fluctuations of the signal pulses are well within 5%. PACS 42.55.Xi; 42.60.Gd; 42.60.Lh; 42.65.Yj     

Numerical analysis of the spatial behaviour of nanosecond optical parametric oscillators of beta-barium borate

We report on a numerical analysis of the temporal and spatial beam properties of nanosecond optical parametric oscillators (OPOs). The analysis is performed for a 355-nm-pumped critically phase-matched OPO of beta-barium borate. The calculations provide detailed information on the dependence of the OPO beam quality (measured by the quality factor M ²) on pump energy. An important result is the strong increase of the M ² value for pump energies exceeding 1–2 times the energy at threshold. Furthermore, a temporal analysis of single OPO pulses indicates that the M ² value strongly increases during the first few nanoseconds of the OPO oscillation. This increase is understood by considering the temporal dynamics of the spatial profiles of the OPO signal beam and the depleted pump radiation. Received: 1 April 1999 / Revised version: 26 July 1999 / Published online: 20 October 1999     

Diode-pumped passively Q-Switched intracavity OPO with a folded cavity configuration

We present in this report an efficient KTP-based intracavity optical parametric oscillator driven by a diode-pumped Nd:GdVO₄/Cr:YAG passively Q-switched laser. For the first time, a novel folded cavity configuration was employed to set the KTP and Cr:YAG crystals separately at different fundamental beam waists. Based on the ABCD-matrix theory and by taking the thermal lens effect into account, the laser cavity was well optimized to enhance the OPO performance. A diode pump threshold as low as 1.2 W and a maximum signal (1.57 μm) average output power up to 560 mW have been achieved. Efficient energy transfer in the IOPO leads to short pulse duration (1.8–2.6 ns) and high peak power (6.8 kW) output at 1.57 μm. Additionally, the correlation dynamics between the pump laser and the OPO was analyzed in detail.     

A 9.5-W 82-MHz-repetition-rate picosecond optical parametric generator with cw diode laser injection seeding

We report on an injection-seeded 9.5-W 82-MHz-repetition-rate picosecond optical parametric generator (OPG) based on a 55 mm long crystal of periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) with a quasi-phase-matching (QPM) grating period of 29.75 μm. The OPG is excited by a continuously diode pumped mode-locked picosecond Nd:YVO₄ oscillator-amplifier system. The laser system generates 7 ps pulses with a repetition rate of 82.3 MHz and an average power of 24 W. Without injection-seeding the total average output power of the OPG is 8.9 W, which corresponds to an internal conversion efficiency of 50%. The wavelengths of the signal and idler waves were tuned in the range 1.57–1.64 μm and 3.03–3.3 μm, respectively, by changing the crystal temperature from 150 °C to 250 °C. Injection seeding of the OPG at 1.58 μm with 4 mW of single frequency continuous-wave radiation of a distributed-feedback (DFB) diode laser increases the OPG output to 9.5 W (53% conversion efficiency). The injection seeding increases the pulse duration and reduces the spectral bandwidth. When pumped by 10 W of 1.06 μm laser radiation, the duration of the signal pulses increased from 3.6 ps to 5.5 ps while the spectral bandwidth is reduced from 4.5 nm to 0.85 nm. Seeding thus improved the time-bandwidth product from 1.98 to a value of 0.56, much closer to the Fourier limit. Received: 29 April 2002 / Published online: 8 August 2002     

Small-scale high-repetition-rate passively Q-switched intracavity OPO at 1.57 μm

A compact small-scale intracavity optical parametric oscillator (IOPO) at 1.57 μm, driven by a diode pumped Nd:YVO₄/Cr:YAG passively Q-switched laser, is experimentally presented. By optimizing the mode matching, low threshold (0.66 W) and high repetition rate (21 kHz) operation of the IOPO has been investigated. At the incident diode pump power of 1.56 W, the miniature (56 mm long) IOPO produces a signal average output power up to 86 mW. Efficient parametric conversion leads to short duration (1.8 ns) pulses and high peak power output (2.3 kW) at 1.57 μm. Moreover, near diffraction limited and Gaussian type signal beam profile is also observed.