Abstract

Coherent ultraviolet radiation has many applications in science and industry, including photochemistry, photobiology, high resolution spectroscopy, and as a pump source for optical parametric oscillators operating in the visible. The excimer and ion lasers generate UV, usually in continuous wave (cw) or pulsed operation. For nonlinear optical applications in which high peak powers are advantageous, cw mode-locked sources are increasingly being employed, and at UV wavelengths such devices are being developed through the exploitation of nonlinear frequency conversion techniques in a variety of optical materials such as beta-barium borate (BBO) and lithium triborate (LBO). Furthermore, novel resonator designs have been used to increase the efficiency and reduce the complexity of these UV sources.¹ We report on an all solid-state source of CW mode-locked UV radiation at the third-harmonic of a Nd:YLF laser pumped by laser diodes.

© 1994 IEEE