HIGH-POWER WIDELY-TUNABLE PICOSECOND PULSES FROM AN ALL-SOLID-STATE SYNCHRONOUSLY-PUMPED OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR

The operation is reported of an all-solid-state singly-resonant synchronously-pumped lithium triborate optical parametric oscillator (OPO). Two different configurations of the gain medium are reported. The first gain medium has antireflection-coated faces, and the second Brewster-angled faces. The antireflection-coated (Brewster-angled) device had an oscillation-threshold average pump power of 90 Mw (170 Mw) at 523 nm. At 2.8 (1.9) times threshold, the pump depletion was 50% (60%), and the oscillator converted 30% (34%) of the pump radiation into tunable output in pulses of approximately 1 ps duration. Temperature-tuned noncritical phase matching in the parametric oscillator yielded radiation continuously tunable over the range 0,85-1.36 mum (0.72-1.91 mum) with up to 43 Mw (89 Mw) of average power in the resonated wave output, and 33 Mw (44 Mw) in the nonresonated wave output.