CONTINUOUS-WAVE MODE-LOCKED SINGLY RESONANT OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR SYNCHRONOUSLY PUMPED BY A LASER-DIODE-PUMPED ND-YLF LASER

We describe a continuous-wave synchronously pumped, singly resonant, KTP optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The pump source is a frequency-doubled additive-pulse mode-locked Nd:YLF laser pumped by a laser diode. An average pump power threshold of 61 mW is observed for the OPO. At approximately 3.7 times threshold, the pump depletion is 79%, and the oscillator converts 16% of the pump into external signal output in bandwidth-limited picosecond pulses with 42 mW of average power. The OPO has been tuned over the range of 1.002-1.096-mu-m.