Combined wide pump tuning and high power of a continuous-wave, singly resonant optical parametric oscillator

• DOI: 10.1007/s00340-003-1384-3
• Publication Date: 2004-03-03T22:35:10Z
• Authors: M.M.J.W. van Herpen; S.E. Bisson; A.K.Y. Ngai; F.J.M. Harren
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; Molecular and Laser Physics; 01 natural sciences

A new singly resonant, single-frequency optical parametric oscillator (OPO) has been developed for the 2.6-4.7 mum infrared wavelength region, using a high power (>20 W), widely tunable (1024-1034 nm) Yb:YAG pump source. With the OPO frequency stabilized with an intracavity etalon, the OPO achieved an idler output power of 3 W at 2.954 mum. Tuning of the idler frequency was achieved by longitudinal mode-hop tuning of the pump source (FSR 100 MHz). In this way an idler frequency scan of 100-150 GHz could be obtained, after which the signal frequency hops ahead over the FSR of the intracavity etalon of the OPO (207 GHz). Due to un-optimized mirror coatings for the OPO cavity and PPLN crystal, the frequency stability was limited to 90 MHz over 1 s, with an unaffected long-term frequency stability of 250 MHz over 200 seconds.