Tunable, continuous-wave single-resonant optical parametric oscillator with output coupling for resonant wave**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61308056, 11204044, 11232015, and 11072271), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (Grant Nos. 20120171110005 and 20130171130003), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. 14lgpy07), and the

Abstract

We present a continuous-wave singly-resonant optical parametric oscillator with 1.5% output coupling of the resonant signal wave, based on an angle-polished MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN), pumped by a commercial Nd:YVO4 laser at 1064 nm. The output-coupled optical parametric oscillator delivers a maximum total output power of 4.19 W with 42.8% extraction efficiency, across a tuning range of 1717 nm in the near- and mid-infrared region. This indicates improvements of 1.87 W in output power, 19.1% in extraction efficiency and 213 nm in tuning range extension in comparison with the optical parametric oscillator with no output coupling, while at the expense of increasing the oscillation threshold by a factor of ∼ 2. Moreover, it is confirmed that the finite output coupling also contributes to the reduction of the thermal effects in crystal.