High-Efficiency Mid-Infrared Picosecond MgO:PPLN Single Resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 61275142, 61308042, and 51321091, the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project under Grant No 2011YQ030127, and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant No 2014T70633.

Abstract

We demonstrate a high-efficiency mid-infrared picosecond optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on MgO doped periodically poled lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN) with a laser diode array (LDA) pumped Innoslab amplifier as the pumping source. Under a 16 W synchronously pumping power, 4.5 W of idler light at 2896 nm is obtained. A tuning range of idler light from 2688 nm to 3016 nm is achieved, within which the highest optical-optical conversion efficiency from pump power to OPO output is 35.1%. Moreover, a signal light of ∼500 mW from 1644 to 1700 nm with a repetition rate of 233.8 MHz is generated.