Tunable CW Single-Frequency Source for Injection Seeding 2-micrometer Lasers

摘要

This program developed a stable, single-frequency, continuous-wave (CW) opticalparametric oscillators (OPOs) for the application of injection seeding pulsed lasers. Progress has been made in the demonstration and performance characterization of doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator (DROs) operating near degeneracy pumped by 532-nm CW radiation obtained from second harmonic generation of diode-array-pumped Nd:YAG lasers. It was observed that the OPO reproduced the coherence of the pump radiation with little additional noise. A detailed analysis of the tuning and control properties of the DRO helpful for development of active stabilization techniques has been completed. Design considerations for a 2-micron DRO based on this analysis are presented. Stabilization of the DRO requires synchronized control of at least three parameters; temperature, pump frequency, and applied potential for electro-optic tuning are considered. Research on this topic is continuing motivated by a the exceptional coherence and tuning properties of the OPO and applications involving optical frequency synthesis that will extend far beyond injection seeding. (jhd)