Abstract
LiInSe(2) is one of the few (only 5) non-oxide nonlinear optical crystals whose band-gap (2.86 eV) and transparency allowed in the past nanosecond optical parametric oscillation in the mid-IR without two-photon absorption for a pump wavelength of 1064 nm. However, the first such demonstration was limited to the 3.3-3.78 microm range for the idler and the average idler power did not exceed 2.5 mW. Here we report broadly tunable operation, from 4.7 to 8.7 microm, of an OPO based on LiInSe(2), achieving maximum idler pulse energy of 282 microJ at approximately 6.5 microm, at a repetition rate of 100 Hz (approximately 28 mW of average power).
Highlights
Room temperature lasing has been reported up to ~5 μm, practical solid-state-lasers have an upper limit of ~3 μm, with the most prominent representatives being the fixed wavelength Er3+-lasers and the tunable Cr2+-lasers [1]
LiInSe2 is one of the few non-oxide nonlinear optical crystals whose band-gap (2.86 eV) and transparency allowed in the past nanosecond optical parametric oscillation in the mid-IR without two-photon absorption for a pump wavelength of 1064 nm
The first such demonstration was limited to the 3.3-3.78 μm range for the idler and the average idler power did not exceed 2.5 mW
Summary
Room temperature lasing has been reported up to ~5 μm, practical solid-state-lasers have an upper limit of ~3 μm, with the most prominent representatives being the fixed wavelength Er3+-lasers and the tunable Cr2+-lasers [1]. Femtosecond and picosecond pulses are associated with much higher peak intensities, it is difficult to achieve simultaneously high output energies and conversion efficiency because of limitations related to the spectral acceptance or higher order dispersion and nonlinear effects. Nanosecond optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) seem to possess the best potential for achieving high average power and single pulse energy. Such OPOs, pumped in the 1 μm range, have been demonstrated, only with 5 of the 14 compounds analyzed in [2]: Ag3AsS3 [3,4,5], AgGaS2 [6,7,8,9], HgGa2S4 [10], LiInSe2 [11], and the solid solution CdxHg1-xGa2S4 [12]. The interest in LISe is motivated by its superior thermo-mechanical properties [13]: isotropic expansion, thermal conductivity ~5 Wm-1K-1 (~3 times higher than in AGS), and smaller thermo-optic coefficients as well as higher damage threshold than AGS, which are important for average power scaling
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