High-power, picosecond, fiber-laser green source based on BiB3O6 for synchronous pumping of MgO:SPPLT optical parametric oscillator

摘要

High-power ultrashort laser pulses in the green are of great interest for a variety of technological and scientific applications [1], including pumping ultrafast optical parametric oscillators [2]. In the absence of suitable laser gain media, the development of high-power green sources over the past 50 years has relied almost exclusively on second harmonic generation (SHG) using various nonlinear materials. The birefringent nonlinear material, bismuth triborate, BiB3O6 (BIBO), possesses unique nonlinear optical properties for frequency conversion from the UV to IR [3]. In particular, for SHG of fundamental radiation near 1 μm, BIBO offers wide spectral and angular acceptance bandwidths with low spatial walk-off (see Fig. 1). Moreover, BIBO also has a relatively high nonlinearity (deff∼3.2 pm/V) as compared to the other widely used borate crystals such as LBO and BBO, making it an excellent nonlinear material for ultrafast picosecond and femtosecond SHG into the green.