A. Agnesi et al., All-solid-state high-repetition-rate optical source tunable in wavelength and in pulse duration, J OPT SOC B, 18(3), 2001, pp. 286-290
A synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) employing period
ically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) efficiently generates diffraction-limit
ed short pulses that are tunable in the 1.45-1.56-mum spectral range, with
their duration adjustable from approximate to1 ps-15 ps and output power as
high as 630 mW. The pump laser that produces these unique OPO characterist
ics is a 200-MHz, 2.5-W average power, diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser emitting
at 1064 nm and passively mode locked by a nonlinear mirror (NLM) technique.
One can select the output pulse width from the vanadate laser to be either
16 or 6 ps simply by choosing the appropriate NLM configuration. Significa
ntly enhanced performance of the mode-locked Nd:YVO4 laser was obtained wit
h a critically phase-matched type I LiB3O5 crystal. A comparison of this cr
ystal with type II KTiOPO4 is reported. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America
.