THE GENERATION OF EFFICIENT TUNABLE COHERENT NEAR-IR RADIATION BY TEMPERATURE-TUNED NONCRITICAL DIFFERENCE-FREQUENCY MIXING IN A LBO CRYSTAL

Efficient tunable near-infrared radiation (NIR) (1.1-2.2 mu m) has bee n generated by temperature-tuned non-critical phase-matched (NCPM) dif ference-frequency mixing of Nd:YAG and tunable dye laser radiation (56 0-710 nm) in a 5 mm LBO crystal. Energy conversion efficiency of 11% a t 1.54 mu m has been achieved. A large angular and spectral bandwidth is observed. Temperature-tuned type-II non-collinear phase-matching ha s also been reported. Comparison with other NIR-generating crystals sh ows that temperature-tuned NCPM in LBO is superior to other methods.