Abstract
A high power source of sub-picosecond light pulses tunable in the mid-infrared would have applications in the ultrafast spectroscopy of molecular vibrations and intersubband absorption in semiconductors. Demonstrations of such sources include a Nd:YAG based OPG/OPA with 4-mW output at 3-μm and 1-mW output at 5-μm [1] and Ti:sapphire laser based OPO/DFGs [2, 3] with 0.5-mW output at 3-μm and 0.2-mW output at 5-μm. Seifert et al [4] used a commercial 1-kHz 800-nm Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier system and demonstrated mid-IR tuning by conversion of the output from a LBO OPG/BBO Type-I OPA through difference frequency generation (DFG) in AgGaS2. They report an output power of 0.05-mW at 5-μm.We have demonstrated that it is possible to operate an OPA system with pulse energies of only a few microjoules with a 400-nm pumped, β-barium-borate (BBO) Type-I OPA using a 250-kHz Ti:sapphire regen [5]. In this paper we describe the conversion of a low energy 800-nm pumped, BBO Type-II OPA through DFG in AgGaS2 to the midinfrared from 2.4-μm to beyond 12-μm with more than 10-mW of power from 3-μm to 6-μm.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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