NEARINFRARED TO MIDINFRARED PICOSECOND OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATOR BASED ON PERIODICALLY POLED RBTIOASO4

We describe a Ti:sapphire-pumped picosecond optical parametric oscilla tor based on periodically poled RbTiOAsO4 that is broadly tunable in t he near to mid infrared. A 4.5-mm single-grating crystal at room tempe rature in combination with pump wavelength tuning provided access to a continuous-tuning range from 3.35 to 5 mu m, and a pump power thresho ld of 90 mW was measured. Average mid-infrared output powers in excess of 100 mW and total output powers of 400 mW in similar to 1-ps pulses were obtained at 33% extraction efficiency. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.