High-energy, tunable, long-wave mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator based on BaGa<sub>4</sub>Se<sub>7</sub> crystal
Degang Xu, Jiaxin Zhang, Yixin He, Yuye Wang, Jiyong Yao, Yangwu Guo, Chao Yan, Longhuang Tang, Jining Li, Kai Zhong, Yicheng Wu, Jianquan Yao
Abstract
A high-energy, tunable, long-wave mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">B</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">a</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">G</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">a</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">S</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">e</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> crystal was demonstrated in this Letter with 1064 nm laser pumping. The mid-infrared OPO was designed as a double-pass single resonant oscillator (DP-SRO) to reduce the threshold and improve the outputs. Further optimization on the cavity length was theoretically and experimentally studied. With a short cavity length of 30 mm, the output energy of over 1 mJ/pulse at 11 µm was obtained with the pump energy of 39.5 mJ/pulse. In addition, a wide tuning range of 8–14 µm was experimentally achieved by rotating the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">B</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">a</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">G</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">a</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">S</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">e</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> crystal.