Interaction of light with impurities in lithium niobate crystals

Congruent lithium niobate and 5-mol% MgO-doped lithium niobate (MgO:LN) crystals are widely used as nonlinear-optical crystals in frequency-conversion devices due to their large nonlinear-optic coefficients. These devices usually require high optical pump powers, but absorption of photons by impurities limits their usability due to heat accumulation that leads to thermo-optic refractive index changes. These refractive index changes distort the beam shape and disturb the phase-matching condition. Furthermore pyroelectric fields can build up. In this thesis the residual optical absorption in congruent lithium niobate (CLN) and MgO:LN crystals is studied. Absorption spectra of CLN and MgO:LN crystals between 400 - 2000 nm reveal a residual absorption up to 0.04 cm-1. This absorption is mainly caused by transition metal impurities. Between 2300 - 2800 nm unknown hydrogen absorption bands in CLN and MgO:LN are revealed on the order of 0.001 cm-1. High-temperature annealing is applied to the CLN and MgO:LN crystals, which decreases optical absorption by up to one order of magnitude. As an application, the operation of a 1550-nm pumped singly-resonant CW optical parametric oscillator, resonant around 2600 nm, using a lowloss, periodically-poled, annealed CLN crystal is demonstrated. Another issue that affects CLN is photorefractive damage (PRD), i.e. light-induced refractive index changes. In contrast, MgO:LN crystals do not suffer from PRD even at high optical intensities. However, it is shown in this thesis that PRD can occur within seconds in MgO:LN, using green laser light at light intensity levels as low as 100 mW/cm2, if the crystal is heated by several degrees Celsius during or before illumination. Photorefractive damage does not occur in CLN crystals under the same conditions. We show that the pyroelectric effect together with an elevated photoconductivity compared to that of CLN causes this beam distortion and that this effect also influences frequency conversion experiments in the infrared due to beam self-heating

Room temperature mid-IR single photon spectral imaging

Spectral imaging and detection of mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelengths are emerging as an enabling technology of great technical and scientific interest; primarily because important chemical compounds display unique and strong mid-IR spectral fingerprints revealing valuable chemical information. While modern Quantum cascade lasers have evolved as ideal coherent mid-IR excitation sources, simple, low noise, room temperature detectors and imaging systems still lag behind. We address this need presenting a novel, field-deployable, upconversion system for sensitive, 2-D, mid-IR spectral imaging. Measured room temperature dark noise is 0.2 photons/spatial element/second, which is a billion times below the dark noise level of cryogenically cooled InSb cameras. Single photon imaging and up to 200 x 100 spatial elements resolution is obtained reaching record high continuous wave quantum efficiency of about 20 % for polarized incoherent light at 3 \mum. The proposed method is relevant for existing and new mid-IR applications like gas analysis and medical diagnostics

Preparation and characterization of stable aqueous suspensions of up-converting Er3+/Yb3+-doped LiNbO3 nanocrystals

The preparation of LiNbO3:Er3+/Yb3+ nanocrystals and their up-conversion properties have been studied. It is demonstrated that polyethyleneimine- (PEI) assisted dispersion procedures allow obtaining stable aqueous LiNbO3:Er3+/Yb3+ powder suspensions, with average size particles well below the micron range (100–200 nm) and the isoelectric point of the suspension reaching values well above pH 7. After excitation of Yb3+ ions at a wavelength of 980 nm, the suspensions exhibit efficient, and stable, IR-to-visible (green and red) up-conversion properties, easily observed by the naked eye, very similar to those of the starting crystalline bulk material

Трансформация образа художника в едином тексте Дж. Фаулза

Phase gratings are recorded holographically with nanosecond light pulses by the interference of two plane waves in colored liquid samples using the thermooptic effect. The samples consist of toluene and distilled water which are immiscible and have different thermal conductivities. The exponential decay of the gratings caused by the thermal conductivity is monitored by diffraction of continuous wave light, and the thermal diffusivity is determined. Scanning of the read-out beam provides spatial resolution

Pyroelectric effects in MgO: LiNbO₃ and its influence on THz generation in a polariton laser

We present a polariton laser producing quasi-CW THz output power up to 7.8 μW. We show that key to achieving high output power is managing thermal load and pyroelectrically induced damage within the MgO:LiNbO₃ crystal.3 page(s

Intensity dependent residual amplitude modulation in electro-optic phase modulators

Residual amplitude modulation (RAM) mechanisms in electro-optic phase modulators are detrimental in applications that require high purity phase modulation of the incident laser beam. While the origins of RAMare not fully understood, measurements have revealed that it depends on the beam properties of the laser as well as the properties of the medium. Here we present experimental and theoretical results that demonstrate, for the first time, the dependence of RAM production in electro-optic phase modulators on beam intensity. The results show an order of magnitude increase in the level of RAM, around 10 dB, with a fifteenfold enhancement in the input intensity from 12 to 190 mW/mm 2. We show that this intensity dependent RAM is photorefractive in origin. © 2012 Optical Society of America