Gain saturation effects in BBO parametric amplifier

摘要

In the present work the gain saturation effects in type-I BBO optical parametric amplifier (OPA) pumped by the 3-rd harmonic of multimode Nd:YAG laser are investigated. The OPA gain was measured as a function of input idler energy at 1064 nm with a constant pump energy at 355 nm and a beam divergence 0,3 mrad. in the 9 mm BBO crystal at pump intensity ~ 68 MW/cm_2 and input idler intensity ~ 18 MW/cm~2 the efficiency of energy extraction in the saturated gain regime ~ 31% was obtained. The ways of increase the efficiency of energy extraction in the two-crystal OPA configuration are discussed.