Abstract

The beam quality of a high-energy mid-infrared ${\mathrm{ZnGeP}}_2$ (ZGP) optical parametric oscillator has been improved by use of a negative lens inside the nonplanar fractional-image-rotation enhancement (FIRE) resonator compensating for the thermal lensing and gain guiding effects. With an $f=-0.9\mathrm{m}{\mathrm{CaF}}_2$ lens, the beam quality is 1.5 and $\sim 2$ for the resonant signal beam and the non-resonant idler beam, respectively. Up to 33 mJ of mid-infrared pulse energy in the 3–5 μm wavelength range is obtained with 94 mJ of pump energy on the crystal. This is an improvement of the beam quality by a factor of 3 for the signal beam and $\sim 2$ for the idler beam compared without using a lens inside the FIRE resonator.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

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