BANDWIDTH STUDIES OF AN INJECTION-SEEDED BETA-BARIUM BORATE OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR

Spectral and temporal properties of a scanning injection-seeded beta-barium borate optical parametric oscillator pumped by the third harmonic of a 10-Hz Nd:YAG laser have been studied. The seed source was a cw diode laser with a wavelength of 830 nm tunable over a range of 50 GHz. We measured the bandwidth of the seeded optical parameter oscillator, using a two-photon resonance in barium and a Fabry-Perot etalon, to be approximately 400 MHz for pump power levels more than two times above threshold. This is similar to 2 times the Fourier-transform-limited bandwidth. At lower pump powers the bandwidth was smaller

HIGHLY EFFICIENT SINGLE-LONGITUDINAL-MODE BETA-BAB2O4 OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR WITH A NEW CAVITY DESIGN

A new coupled-cavity design for single-longitudinal-mode operation of an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is presented. The OPO is based on a beta-BaB2O4 crystal and is pumped by the third harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser. With this design, we achieved single-longitudinal-mode operation of the OPO with a decrease in the threshold and an increase in external efficiency compared with those of a conventional grazing-incidence OPO. A mathematical model that describes the mode spacings for this cavity is given. (C) 1995 Optical Society of Americ