Heat-pipe oven for large column densities with a well-defined optical path length

A concentric heat-pipe oven of improved design is presented which provides a metal-vapor inert-gas mixture of large column density and simultaneously with a stable, well-defined optical path length. It is applied to the efficient sum-frequency mixing in a metal-vapor inert-gas mixture containing magnesium and krypton. The corresponding phase-matching curves, the intensity profiles around the two-photon resonance and the conversion efficiencies are presented.     

SHG in Bragg reflection waveguides for enhanced bandwidth applications

A novel scheme for second harmonic generation in asymmetric Bragg reflection waveguides is presented for enhancing the bandwidth of non-linear interaction. The strong dispersion exhibited by the Bragg reflection waveguide is exploited for countering the rapidly falling efficiency as one moves away from the phase-matching wavelength. The role of the periodic cladding on the efficiency and bandwidth of second harmonic generation in a lithium niobate based Bragg reflection waveguide is analyzed. Such an idea could be used in other parametric processes for enhancing the bandwidth and for easing fabrication tolerances.     

Efficient Nanosecond Dual-Signal Optical Parametric Generator with a Periodically Phase Reversed PPMgLN

We report an efficient nanosecond optical parametric generator （OPG） with a periodically-phase-reversed periodically poled MgO：LINbO3 （ppr-PPMgLN）, which produces two pairs of signal and idler waves. The OPG is pumped by a 1.064μm Q-switched Nd：YVO4 laser. When the repetition rate is set at 10kHz, the maximum average total output power of 570mW is achieved, including 410mW of dual-signal radiations and 160mW of dual-idler radiations. The total conversion efficiency is 32.5%. The tunable dual-signal wavelengths in the range of 1.474-1.518μm and 1.490-1.539μm and the dual-idler of 3.826-3.558 μm and 3. 726-3.451 μm are obtained by changing the crystal temperature from 30℃ to 200℃.     

Long-term stable operation and absolute frequency stabilization of a doubly resonant parametric oscillator

Received: 12 March 1998     

A Low-Pump-Threshold High-Repetition-Rate Intracavity Optical Parametric Generator Based on Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate

A low-pump-threshold high-repetition-rate intracavity optical parametric generator （IOPG） by using a periodically poled lithium niobate （PPLN） is reported. The PPLN, which is 18.7mm long and has a grating period of 28.93tzm at room temperature, is inserted in a diode-end-pumped Nd：YV04 laser with an acousto-optic Q switch. The parametric generation threshold is 1.3 W （diode laser power） at a Q-switch repetition rate of 19 kHz. At an incident diode pump power of 5 W, an average signal output power of 280mW has been achieved. The signal pulse duration is approximately 85 ns. By changing the crystal temperature from 120℃ to 250℃, the signal wavelength can be tuned from 1.493μm to 1.538μm.     

Proposal of high quality walk-off compensated sum frequency generation of ultra-short pulses

A multi-crystal and a frequency-selective group-velocity compensating schemes are proposed for the sum frequency-third harmonic generation of low power ultra-short pulses from a Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser. The mechanisms of compensation are analyzed accordingly. It is shown that the temporal walk-off can be effectively compensated without any dispersive element. By use of BBO, calcite crystals together with specially designed composite phase delay plates and dichroic beamsplitters, high quality third harmonic ultra-violet pulses within 300 nm can be generated by the two schemes.     

Narrow-linewidth, pump-enhanced singly-resonant parametric oscillator pumped at 532 nm

3 is demonstrated. The pump wave is provided by a frequency-doubled miniature Nd:YAG ring laser and is resonantly enhanced in the SRO cavity, resulting in an external threshold of 200 mW. Stable single-frequency emission in the 1000–1135 nm range has been obtained with 2 GHz continuous tunability and signal/idler linewidths <160 kHz. Received: 25 August 1997     

Generation of 840 mW of red light by frequency doubling a diode-pumped 1342 nm Nd:YVO4 laser with periodically-poled LiTaO3

We report an efficient generation of red light in a periodically-poled LiTaO₃ (PPLT) crystal by extracavity single-pass frequency doubling of a diode-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ laser at 1342 nm. The sample used in the experiment is 20 mm in length and 14.77 μm in period. An average power of 840 mW of the 671 nm red light is obtained with a 808 nm pump of 12.3 W, the overall optical-to-optical efficiency being 6.8%. The measured effective nonlinear coefficient of the sample is ∼3.8 pm/V. The high conversion efficiency and output power demonstrate that the periodically-poled crystal serving as a frequency conversion device may be used in practice to construct an all-solid-state red laser based on an extracavity single-pass quasi-continuous scheme. Received: 17 September 2001 / Revised version: 23 January 2002 / Published online: 8 May 2002     

Femtosecond ultraviolet pulses generated using noncollinear optical parametric amplification and sum frequency mixing

We demonstrate the generation of ultraviolet 33-fs pulses with a shot-to-shot energy fluctuation of less than 3% using sum frequency mixing of visible pulses of a noncollinear optical parametric amplifier with sub-40-fs pulses of a 1-kHz Ti:sapphire-amplified system. The pulses are transform-limited (ΔνΔτ=0.36) and tunable in the range from 315 nm to 355 nm with energy above 1 μJ (2.6 μJ at 330 nm). Received: 21 July 2000 / Published online: 8 November 2000     

β-BaB2O4 deep UV monolithic walk-off compensating tandem

The generation of watt-level cw narrow-linewidth sources at specific deep-UV wavelengths corresponding to atomic cooling transitions usually employs external cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation (SHG) of moderate-power visible lasers in birefringent materials. Among the oxo-borate materials, barium borate (β-BaB₂O₄ or BBO) combines the highest UV band edge and largest nonlinearity but suffers from large walk-off angles that limits the nonlinear interaction length. Alternative quasi-phase-matched (QPM) ferroelectrics are hardly suited for cavity-enhanced operation due to their much larger UV absorption and associated photo-refractive and thermal lensing effects, in addition to the difficult fabrication of fine-pitch domain gratings for short UV coherence lengths. In this work, we investigate an alternative approach to cw deep-UV generation by employing the low-loss BBO in a monolithic walk-off compensating structure [J.-J. Zondy, Ch. Bonnin, D. Lupinski, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20 (2003) 1675] to simultaneously enhance the effective nonlinear coefficient while minimizing the UV beam ellipticity under tight focusing. As a preliminary step to cavity-enhanced operation, and in order to apprehend the design difficulties stemming from the extremely low acceptance angle of BBO, we investigate and analyze the single-pass performance of a L_c = 8 mm monolithic walk-off compensating structure made of 2 optically-contacted BBO plates cut for type-I critically phase-matched SHG of a cw λ = 570.4 nm dye laser. As compared with a bulk crystal of identical length, a sharp UV efficiency enhancement factor of 1.65 has been evidenced with the tandem structure, but at ∼−1 nm from the targeted fundamental wavelength, highlighting the sensitivity of this technique when applied to a highly birefringent material such as BBO. Solutions to angle cut residual errors are identified so as to match accurately more complex periodic-tandem structure performance to any target UV wavelength, opening the prospect for high-power, good beam quality deep-UV cw laser sources for atom cooling and trapping.     

High-power source of coherent picosecond light pulses tunable from 0.41 to 12.9 μm

We report a high-power source of coherent picosecond light pulses based on optical parametric generation and amplification in LiB₃O₅ and AgGaS₂ crystals. The spectral range of this continuously tunable source covers the visible, near-infrared and medium-infrared spectrum from 0.41 to 12.9 m. An optical parametric generator and amplifier, consisting of two type-I phase-matched LiB₃O₅ crystals and a diffraction grating, is pumped by the third harmonic of a picosecond Nd:YAG laser and provides spectrally narrow, high-power pulses from 0.41 to 2.4 m. Energy conversion efficiencies up to 16 percent are achieved. The pulse duration is about 14 ps, the bandwidth between 10 and 30 cm^–1. The tuning range is extended to 12.9 m by mixing the infrared output between 1.16 and 2.13 m with the fundamental of the Nd:YAG laser in type-I-phase-matched AgGaS₂ crystals. Up to 25 percent of the pulse energy at 1.064 m is converted into parametric infrared pulses. Bandwidths between 3 and 8 cm^–1 and a pulse duration of approximately 19 ps are measured for these pulses. We also observe a retracing behaviour in the tuning curve of AgGaS₂ not reported before.     

Amplitude Regenerative Characteristics of RZ-DPSK Wavelength Converter Based on Four-Wave Mixing in SOA

We investigate the phase-preserving amplitude regenerative characteristics of the return-to-zero （RZ） differential- phase-shift-keying （DPSK） wavelength conversion based on four-wave m/xing （FWM） in a semiconductor optical amplifier （SOA）. The Q-factor and the optical signal-to-noise ratio （OSNR） before and after conversion are experimentally obtained and analysed in different input noise power levels. In both the continuous-wave and synchronous clock pumping cases, we find that there is amplitude clamping in the FWM conversion due to the gain saturation of SOA, which can suppress the amplitude fluctuation of the converted DPSK signal before and after demodulation. We have achieved 2-dB Q penalty improvement in our experiment demonstration of lOGbit/s RZ-DPSK signal with OSNR lower than 19dB.     

Bandwidth enhancement and response flattening of cascaded sum- and difference-frequency generation-based wavelength conversion

We investigate bandwidth enhancement and response flattening of wavelength conversion based on cascaded sum-frequency generation and difference-frequency generation (SFG/DFG) in quasi-phase-matched periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides by use of two pump lights. Analysis shows that the conversion properties deeply depend on the pump settings. The bandwidth is efficiently enhanced by augmenting the pump wavelength difference. The critical bandwidth corresponding to the response fluctuation of 1 dB in a 3-cm-long waveguide reaches 80-90 nm, which is enough to cover the entire conventional-band and long-wavelength-band. The cascaded SFG/DFG bandwidth is about 24% broader than that of the cascaded second-harmonic generation and difference-frequency generation-based configuration with the same waveguide length. However, the response fluctuation is also enhanced together with the bandwidth enhancement. The method of pump detuning is presented to flatten the response fluctuation. The fluctuation is reduced by more than 1 dB and it can be further reduced by increasing the pump detuning value with a little efficiency penalty.     

High dynamic range measurement of temporal shape and contrast of ultrashort UV pulses

This paper presents an experimental technique for measurement of the contrast ratio of ultrashort UV pulses. As a multiple-shot device based on the scheme of difference frequency generation this is, to our knowledge, the only cross correlator in the UV so far, which offers a dynamic range of 10⁷ and operates with input pulse energies as low as 5 μJ. By changing the cross correlator into single-shot mode, the temporal shape of the UV pulse can be measured. Received: 26 October 1998 / Revised version: 13 January 1998 / Published online: 28 April 1999     

Influence of Cascaded Nonlinear Phase Shifts on Second-Harmonic Generation in High-Intensity Pumped QPM Structures

Cascaded nonlinear phase shifts may be imposed on the interacting waves during second-harmonic generation （SHG） in a quasi-Phase-matched （QPM） structure, whieh are severe in high-intensity regime and may result in lower conversion efficiency. We propose a configuration of QPM structure with reduced domain-length, which may depress the nonlinear phase shifts to some extent and lead to an improvement on the conversion efficiency. The numerical analyses on the conversion efficiency as well as the relative phase angle are discussed in detail for better understanding of the SHG process.     

Direct third harmonic generation due to quadratic cascaded processes in periodically poled crystals

We report the first, according to our knowledge, experiment for direct third harmonic (TH) generation in periodically poled quadratic crystals. TH radiation of a diode array pumped and acousto-optically Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ laser is generated in a 25 mm long periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal of period 7.0 μm. A theoretical model is developed that explains the experimental results. It predicts that the efficient phase-matched direct TH generation in periodically poled structures with duty factor 0.5 requires even order quasi-phase matching. In contrast to the similar experiments in bulk birefringence crystals, where direct phase matched TH signal is the sum of the contribution of both intrinsic and cascaded cubic nonlinearities, in periodically poled quadratic crystals only cascaded cubic nonlinearity contributes to the direct phase-matched TH signal.     

Pulse width measurement of high-order harmonics by autocorrelation

Pulse widths of the 7th and 9th harmonics of a Ti:sapphire (TiS) laser have been measured by an autocorrelation technique using two-photon and three-photon ionization of He and Ar as nonlinear phenomena. The pulse widths of the 7th and 9th harmonics were 47 fs and 27 fs, respectively, where the pulse width of the fundamental pulse was 34 fs. The pulse width of the 9th harmonic depends strongly on the peak intensity of the fundamental pulse. These results can be explained by quantum theory by taking into account the temporal and spatial distribution of the fundamental beam. Received: 15 June 1999 / Revised version: 8 October 1999 / Published online: 2 February 2000     

AOPDF-shaped optical parametric amplifier output in the visible

Time shaping of ultra-short visible pulses has been performed using a specially designed acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter of 50% efficiency at the output of a two-stage non-collinear optical parametric amplifier. The set-up is compact and reliable. It provides a tunable shaped source in the visible with unique features: a 4-ps shaping window with preserved tunability over 500–650 nm, and pulses as short as 30 fs. Several-μJ output energy is easily obtained.