Realization of a high-power UV-pumped optical parametric oscillator depending on the decrease of the color center density.

Abstract

In this paper, a high-power UV-pumped BBO optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is presented by increasing the working temperature of the nonlinear crystal to fasten the color center recovery speed and further decrease the color center density. When the working temperature of the BBO crystal was experimentally increased from 135 °C to 185 °C, the output power was scaled up from 1.20 W to 2.17 W. The repetition rate and pulse width of the signal light were 10 kHz and 5.23 ns, respectively. By rotating the BBO crystal, the wavelength of the signal light was tuned from 409.81 nm to 581.87 nm. To the best of our knowledge, it was the highest output power for the 355 nm UV-pumped II-type critical phase-matched BBO OPO. The results are beneficial for the development of OPOs as well as in industrial and scientific research fields.