Thermal effects in singly resonant continuous-wave optical parametric oscillators

Stability and tuning characteristics of continuous-wave optical parametric oscillators (CW OPOs) are affected by various thermal effects arising from optical absorption in nonlinear crystals. In this paper, we present an experimental study of such effects in a singly resonant CW OPO. The OPO operate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics. B, Lasers and optics Lasers and optics, 2009-03, Vol.94 (3), p.411-427
Main Authors: Vainio, M., Peltola, J., Persijn, S., Harren, F. J. M., Halonen, L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystals
Engineering
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Idlers
Infrared sources
Lasers
Lithium niobates
Nonlinear optics
Nonlinearity
Optical bistability, multistability and switching, including local field effects
Optical Devices
Optical Parametric Oscillators
Optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers
Optical sources and standards
Optics
Photonics
Physical Chemistry
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum Optics
Stability
Tuning
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Summary:Stability and tuning characteristics of continuous-wave optical parametric oscillators (CW OPOs) are affected by various thermal effects arising from optical absorption in nonlinear crystals. In this paper, we present an experimental study of such effects in a singly resonant CW OPO. The OPO operates in the 3-μm mid-infrared region and it is based on a MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. We focus our study on two thermally induced phenomena that have been recently reported to exist in singly resonant CW OPOs: optical bi-stability and thermal self-locking. Thermal self-locking effect, which is known to alter the stability and tuning properties of doubly and triply resonant CW OPOs, is shown to be also of importance in singly resonant OPOs. We report the stability and tuning characteristics of a thermally loaded OPO and discuss a simple temperature-tuning method that can be used to scan the OPO idler frequency continuously over several THz.
ISSN:0946-2171
1432-0649
DOI:10.1007/s00340-008-3287-9