A high peak power and low peak-to-peak instability mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 1064 nm electro-optic cavity-dumped pulsed laser

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate a tunable mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) using an MgO: PPLN crystal with a polarization period of 29.8 μm, which was end-pumped by a 1064 nm electro-optic cavity-dumped all-solid-state laser (1064 nm EOCD-laser) with a pulse repetition frequency range of 100 Hz to 1 kHz. Thanks to the use of 808 nm pulsed laser diode (LD) side-pumping Nd: YAG crystal, transverse electro-optic modulating (TEOM) MgO: LN crystal, and birefringent crystal (BC) filtering in the 1064 nm cavity-dumped cavity, both the 1064 nm EOCD-laser and the idler light output by the OPO exhibited high peak power and low peak-to-peak instability in both pulse width and single pulse energy. By combining temperature tuning of the MgO: PPLN crystal from 30 °C to 200 °C, wavelength tuning of the idler light from 3705.2 to 3424.3 nm was achieved. For the first time, a pulsed idler light at 3705.2 nm with a high peak power of 1.224 MW, a narrow pulse width of 4.97 ns, and an optical-to-optical (1064 nm to 3705.2 nm) conversion efficiency of 38.1% was obtained, corresponding to a tuning temperature of 30 °C and a pulse repetition frequency of 100 Hz. The peak-to-peak instability for both pulse width and single pulse energy was only ± 1.04% and ± 1.41%, respectively.