Abstract
We report a high-energy picosecond optical parametric generator/amplifier (OPG/A) based on a MgO:PPLN crystal pumped by a fiber master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA) employing direct amplification. An OPG tuning range of 1450-3615 nm is demonstrated with pulse energies as high as 2.6 μJ (signal) and 1.2 μJ (idler). When seeded with a ~100 MHz linewidth diode laser, damage-limited pulse energies of 3.1 μJ (signal) and 1.3 μJ (idler) have been achieved and the signal pulse time-bandwidth product is improved to ~2 times transform-limited. When seeded with a 0.3 nm-bandwidth filtered amplified spontaneous emission source, crystal damage is avoided and maximum pulse energies of 3.8 μJ (signal) and 1.7 μJ (idler) are obtained at an overall conversion efficiency of 45%.
Highlights
Tunable sources of short laser pulses in the mid-IR are useful for a number of spectroscopic and materials processing applications due to the presence of characteristic vibrational absorptions of organic materials in this spectral region [1,2]
We report a high-energy picosecond optical parametric generator/amplifier (OPG/A) based on a MgO:PPLN crystal pumped by a fiber master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA) employing direct amplification
An optical parametric generators (OPGs) tuning range of 1450-3615 nm is demonstrated with pulse energies as high as 2.6 μJ and 1.2 μJ
Summary
Tunable sources of short laser pulses in the mid-IR are useful for a number of spectroscopic and materials processing applications due to the presence of characteristic vibrational absorptions of organic materials in this spectral region [1,2]. Optical parametric generators (OPGs) are attractive, due to their simple single-pass nature, allowing compact devices that are less costly and less sensitive to external perturbations in comparison to the synchronously-pumped cavities of short-pulse optical parametric oscillators (OPOs). As a result of the single-pass interaction, OPGs require high-intensity pump sources to achieve a high parametric gain. This has been achieved using solid-state near-IR pump lasers based on gain media such as Ti:sapphire or Yb-doped tungstates [3,4,5]. In order to reach the μJ-level mid-IR pulse energies that are interesting for organic materials processing techniques such as resonant infrared pulsed laser deposition (RIR-PLD) [6,7], systems are normally operated at Hz to kHz repetition rates [810]
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