Abstract

We have demonstrated a widely tunable continuous-wave (cw) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that uses lithium triborate (LiB₃O₅; LBO) as the nonlinear material, and a tunable Ti:sapphire laser as the pump source. An attractive feature of LBO in the type I non-critical phase-matched (NCPM) geometry is the wideband temperature tuning. In combination with a tunable pump source, this configuration has potential not only for continuous-tuning over a wide spectral range (1-2 μm), but also for accessing particular signal/idler frequency- pairs through appropriate combination of temperature and pump-wavelength tuning. The OPO described here operates over a 25 THz region from 1.49 to 1.70 μm, limited only by the bandwidth of the optical coatings.

© 1994 Optical Society of America