Abstract

The performance of collinear and noncollinear pulsed barium borate optical parametric oscillators with third-harmonic Nd:YAG pumping is analyzed. The effects of tangential phase matching and pump Poynting vector walk-off compensation are shown to enhance noncollinear operation. However, we show that these effects are mutually exclusive for a type I $\beta$-barium borate optical parametric oscillator and furthermore that tangential phase matching is dominant. The selection of a collinear or a noncollinear configuration is determined by pump divergence and spot size as well as by crystal aperture. With a pump divergence of 4 mrad, noncollinear operation is optimal. The highest slope efficiency, 37%, and the lowest threshold, 5 mJ, are obtained with nearly perfect tangential phase matching. For a pump divergence of less than 2 mrad and a similar spot size, collinear operation gives the lowest threshold, 3.2 mJ, and the highest slope efficiency, 33%.

© 1997 Optical Society of America

Spectral properties and conversion efficiency of 355-nm-pumped pulsed optical parametric oscillators of β-barium borate with noncollinear phase matching

R. Urschel, U. Bäder, A. Borsutzky, and R. Wallenstein
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 16(4) 565-579 (1999)

Polychromatic optical parametric generation by simultaneous phase matching over a large spectral bandwidth

Jian Wang, Malcolm H. Dunn, and Cameron F. Rae
Opt. Lett. 22(11) 763-765 (1997)

Simple, high-performance type II β-BaB₂O₄ optical parametric oscillator

Sheng Wu, Geoffrey A. Blake, Zhaoyang Sun, and Jiwu Ling
Appl. Opt. 36(24) 5898-5901 (1997)

High-efficiency parametric oscillation and spectral control in the red spectral region with periodically poled KTiOPO₄

V. Pasiskevicius, H. Karlsson, F. Laurell, R. Butkus, V. Smilgevicius, and A. Piskarskas
Opt. Lett. 26(10) 710-712 (2001)

Kilohertz femtosecond UV-pumped visible β-barium borate and lithium triborate optical parametric generator and amplifier

Hong Wang, Kam Sing Wong, Daoqun Deng, Zuyan Xu, George K. L. Wong, and Jingyuan Zhang
Appl. Opt. 36(9) 1889-1893 (1997)