Abstract
The ease of tuning and remarkable frequency range of optical parametric oscillators (OPO’s) have made them attractive sources for a variety of applications. Non-critical phasematching in periodically poled materials allows for relatively long nonlinear interaction lengths for picosecond pulses, which, along with low thresholds and the availability of high power pump sources, leads to the possibility of large output powers. Previous output powers as high as 4.85 W—combined idler and signal—from a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) OPO synchronously pumped by 70 psec cw-modelocked pulses have been recorded.1 Here we report a high power picosecond synchronously pumped PPLN OPO continuously tunable between 1.7 and 2.84 flm. Up to 7.7 W signal at 1.85 pm and 4.7 W idler radiation at 2.5 pm is simultaneously extracted from 17.7 W average pump power at 1.064 pm, corresponding to a total external efficiency of 70%. Over a period of one hour the output power is stable to within five percent and is correlated to the stability of the pump laser. This implies that the deleterious effects of dynamic thermal lensing and photorefractive damage are absent even at such high powers.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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