High-power, variable repetition rate, picosecond optical parametric oscillator pumped by an amplified gain-switched diode

• Main Authors: Kienle, Florian (Author), Chen, Kang K. (Author), Alam, Shaif-ul (Author), Gawith, Corin B.E (Author), Mackenzie, Jacob I. (Author), Hanna, David C. (Author), Richardson, David J. (Author), Shepherd, David P. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2010-04-12.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext; Get fulltext

We demonstrate a picosecond optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that is synchronously pumped by a fiber-amplified gain-switched laser diode. At 24W of pump power, up to 7.3W at 1.54µm and 3.1W at 3.4µm is obtained in separate output beams. The periodically poled MgO-doped LiNbO₃ OPO operates with ~17ps pulses at a fundamental repetition rate of 114.8MHz but can be switched to higher repetition rates up to ~1GHz. Tunability between 1.4µm and 1.7µm (signal) and 2.9µm and 4.4µm (idler) is demonstrated by translating the nonlinear crystal to access different poling-period gratings and typical M2 values of 1.1 by 1.2 (signal) and 1.6 by 3.2 (idler) are measured at high power for the singly resonant oscillator.