Spectrum Correction in Study of Solvation Dynamics by Fluorescence Non-collinear Optical Parametric Amplification Spectroscopy

Femtosecond time-resolved fluorescence non-collinear optical parametric amplification spec- troscopy can extract the curve of spectral gain from its parametric superfluorescence. This unique spectrum correction method enables fluorescence non-collinear optical parametric amplification spectroscopy acquiring the genuine transient fluorescence spectrum of the studied system. In this work we employ fluorescence non-collinear optical parametric amplification spectroscopy technique to study the solvation dynamics of DCM dye in ethanol solution, and confirm that genuine solvation correlation function and shift of peak frequency can be derived from transient fluorescence spectra after the spectral gain correction. It demonstrates that fluorescence non-collinear optical parametric amplification spectroscopy can benefit the research fields, which focuses on both fluorescence intensity dynamics and fluorescence spectral shape evolution.

Comparative investigation of long-wave infrared generation based on ZnGeP_2 and CdSe optical parametric oscillators

Long-wave infrared （IR） generation based on type-Ⅱ （o→e＋o） phase matching ZnGeP2 （ZGP） and CdSe optical parametric oscillators （OPOs） pumped by a 2.05μm Tm,Ho：GdVO4 laser is reported. The comparisons of the birefringent walk-off effect and the oscillation threshold between ZGP and CdSe OPOs are performed theoretically and experimentally. For the ZGP OPO, up to 419 mW output at 8.04 μm is obtained at the 8 kHz pump pulse repetition frequency （PRF） with a slope efficiency of 7.6%. This ZGP OPO can be continuously tuned from 7.8 to 8.5 μm. For the CdSe OPO, we demonstrate a 64 mW output at 8.9μm with a single crystal 28 mm in length.

Continuous-wave mid-infrared intracavity singly resonant optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled lithium niobate

This paper reports a continuous-wave （CW） mid-infrared intracavity singly resonant optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled lithium niobate （PPLN） pumped by a diode-end-pumped CW Nd：YVO4 laser. Considering the thermal lens effects, it adopted an optical ballast lens and the near-concentric cavity for better operation. At the PPLN＇s grating period of 28.5 μm and the temperature of 140℃, the maximum idler output power of 155 mW at 3.86 μm has been achieved when the 808 nm pump power is 8.5 W, leading to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 1.82%.

High efficiency continuous-wave tunable signal output of an intracavity singly resonant optical parametric oscillator based on periodically poled lithium niobate

In this paper we report on a continuous-wave （CW） intracavity singly resonant optical parametric oscillator （ICSRO） based on periodically poled LiNbO3 （PPLN） pumped by a diode-end-pumped CW Nd：YVO4 laser. Considering the thermal lens effects and diffraction loss, an optical ballast lens and a near-concentric cavity are adopted for better operation. Through varying the grating period and the temperature, the tunable signal output from 1406 nm to 1513 nm is obtained. At a PPLN grating period of 29 pm and a temperature of 413 K, a maximum signal output power of 820 mW at 1500 nm is achieved when the 808 nm pump power is 10.9 W, leading to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 7.51%.

Low noise,continuous-wave single-frequency 1.5-μm laser generated by a singly resonant optical parametric oscillator

We report a low noise continuous-wave （CW） single-frequency 1.5-μm laser source obtained by a singly resonant optical parametric oscillator （SRO） based on periodically poled lithium niobate （PPLN）. The SRO was pumped by a CW single-frequency Nd：YVO4 laser at 1.06μm. The 1.02 W of CW single-frequency signal laser at 1.5 μm was obtained at pump power of 6 W. At the output power of around 0.75 W, the power stability was better than ±l.5% and no mode-hopping was observed in 30 min and frequency stability was better than 8.5 MHz in 1 min. The signal wavelength could be tuned from 1.57 to 1.59 μm by varying the PPLN temperature. The 1.5-μm laser exhibits low noise characteristics, the intensity noise of the laser reaches the shot noise limit （SNL） at an analysis frequency of 4 MHz and the phase noise is less than 1 dB above the SNL at analysis frequencies above 10 MHz.

High-Efficiency Mid-Infrared Picosecond MgO:PPLN Single Resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator

We demonstrate a high-emciency mid-infrared picosecond optical parametric oscillator （OPO） based on MgO doped periodically poled lithium niobate （MgO：PPLN） with a laser diode array （LDA） pumped Innoslab amplifier as the pumping source. Under a 16 W synchronously pumping power, 4.5 W of idler light at 2896nm is obtained. A tuning range of idler light from 2688nm to 3016nm is achieved, within which the highest optical-optical conversion ettlciency from pump power to OPO output is 35.1%. Moreover, a signal light of -500mW from 1644 to 1700nm with a repetition rate of 233.8 MHz is generated.

Corneal damage effects induced by infrared optical parametric oscillator radiation at 3743 nm

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the corneal damage effects induced by mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator(OPO)radiation.Experiments were performed to determine the corneal damage thresholds of New Zealand white rabbit at the wavelength of 3743 nm for ex-posurédurations of 0.1 s,1.0 s and 10.0 s.Through slit-lamp biomicroscope and histopathology,corneal injury characteristics were revealed.The damage thresholds were 3.73 J/cm^(2),7.91 J/cm^(2)and 31.1 J/cm^(2),respectively,for exposure durations of 0.1 s,1.0 s and 10.0 s.The damage data was correlated by an empirical equation:Radiant exposure at the threshold=9.72×exposure duration,^(0.46)where the units of radiant exposure and exposure duration were J/cm^(2)and second.At near-threshold level,corneal injuries at 1 h post-exposure mainly involved the epithelium,and the epithelium damages repaired at 24-h post-exposure.There are sufficient safety margins be-tween the damage thresholds and the maximum permitted exposures from current international laser safety standard IEC 60825-1.

Tunable femtosecond near-infrared source based on a Yb:LYSO-laser-pumped optical parametric oscillator

We demonstrate a widely tunable near-infrared source from 767 nm to 874 nm generated by the intracavity second harmonic generation （SHG） in an optical parametric oscillator pumped by a Yb：LYSO solid-state laser. The home-made Yb：LYSO oscillator centered at 1035 nm delivers an average power of 2 W and a pulse duration as short as 351 fs. TWo MgO doped periodically poled lithium niobates （MgO：PPLN） with grating periods of 28.5-31.5 μm in steps of 0.5 μm and 19.5-21.3μm in steps of 0.2 μm are used for the OPO and intracavity SHG, respectively. The maximum average output power of 180 mW at 798 nm was obtained and the output pulses have pulse duration of 313 fs at 792 nm if a sech2-pulse shape was assumed. In addition, tunable signal femtosecond pulses from 1428 nm to 1763 nm are also realized with the maximum average power of 355 mW at 1628 nm.

Widely Tunable Middle Infrared Optical Parametric Oscillator Pumped by the Q-Switched Ho：GdVO_4 Laser

We demonstrate a middle infrared ZnGeP_2 optical parametric oscillator pumped by the Q-switched Ho：GdVO_4 laser. When the incident Ho pump power is 4.12 W, the maximum average output power of the ZGP-OPO laser is 2.05 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 74.6%. The ZGP-OPO laser produces 4.2 ns mid-infrared pulses at a pulse repetition rate of 5 kHz. In addition, we obtain 0.8 um of tunable range for the signal wave and 2.1 um of tunable range for the idler wave.

Angular spectrum characters of high gain non-critical phase match optical parametric oscillators

The angular spectrum gain characters and the power magnification characters of high gain non-walk-off colinear optical parametric oscillators have been studied using the non-colinear phase match method for the first time. The experimental results of the KTiOAs04 and the KTiOP04 crystals are discussed in detail. At the high energy single resonant condition, low reflective ratio of the output mirror for the signal and long non-linear crystal are beneficial for small divergence angles. This method can also be used for other high gain non-walk-off phase match optical parametric orocesses.

Table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers: past and present

The generation of power-and wavelength-scalable few optical cycle pulses remains one of the major challenges in modern laser physics.Over the past decade,the development of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplificationbased systems was progressing at amazing speed,demonstrating excellent performance characteristics in terms of pulse duration,energy,peak power and repetition rate,which place them at the front line of modern ultrafast laser technology.At present,table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers comprise a unique class of ultrafast light sources,which currently amplify octave-spanning spectra and produce carrier-envelope phase-stable,few optical cycle pulses with multi-gigawatt to multi-terawatt peak powers and multi-watt average powers,with carrier wavelengths spanning a considerable range of the optical spectrum.This article gives an overview on the state of the art of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers,addressing their relevant scientific and technological aspects,and provides a short outlook of practical applications in the growing field of ultrafast science.

Beam divergence effects on high power optical parametric oscillation

The beam divergence effects of the input pump laser on a high power nanosecond optical parametric oscillator （OPO） have been numerically simulated. The OPO conversion efficiency is affected due to the angular deviation of real laser beams from ideal phase matching conditions. Our theoretical model is based on the decomposition of the Gaussian beam and assumes each component has a single deviation angle and thus a particular wave vector mismatch. We take into account the variable intensity profile in the spatial and temporal domains of the Gaussian beam, the pump depletion effects for large-signal processes as well as the oscillatory effects of the three waves. Two nonlinear crystals β-BaB2O4 （BBO） and LiB305 （LBO） have been investigated in detail. The results indicate that the degree of beam divergence strongly influences the maximum pump intensity, optimum crystal length and OPO conversion efficiency. The impact of beam divergence is much more severe in the case of critical phase-matching for BBO than in the case of non-critical phase-matching for LBO. The results provide a way to choose the optimum parameters for a high power ns OPO such as the nonlinear material, the crystal length and the pump intensity, etc. Good agreement is obtained with our experimental results.

Nonlinear optical imaging by detection with optical parametric amplification(invited paper)

Nonlinear optical imaging is a versatile tool that has been proven to be exceptionally useful in various research fields.However,due to the use of photomultiplier tubes(PMTs),the wide application of nonlinear optical imaging is limited by the incapability of imaging under am-bient light.In this paper,we propose and demonstrate a new optical imaging detection method based on optical parametric amplification(OPA).As a nonlinear optical process,OPA in-trinsically rejects ambient light photons by coherence gating.Periodical poled lithium niobate(PPLN)crystals are used in this study as the media for OPA.Compared to bulk nonlinear optical crystals,PPLN crystals support the generation of OPA signal with lower pump power.Therefore,this characteristic of PPLN crystals is particularly beneficial when using high-repetition-rate lasers,which facilitate high-speed optical signal detection,such as in spec-troscopy and imaging.A PPLN-based OPA system was built to amplify the emitted imaging signal from second harmonic generation(SHG)and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering(CARS)microscopy imaging,and the amplified optical signal was strong enough to be detected by a biased photodiode under ordinary room light conditions.With OPA detection,ambient-light-on SHG and CARS imaging becomes possible,and achieves a similar result as PMT detection under strictly dark environments.These results demonstrate that OPA can be used as a substitute for PMTs in nonlinear optical imaging to adapt it to various applications with complex.light ing conditions.

Coherent effect of triple-resonant optical parametric amplification inside a cavity with injection of a squeezed vacuum field

In theory, we study the quantum tluctuatlons ot tlae suDllarmonlc renecteu nela Irom a ulplc-rc^ulltUtt IdU^ClIClatC optical parametric amplifier （OPA） inside an optical cavity. We discuss two cases, where the linewidth of the harmonic field is either much narrower or broader than the subharmonic field. Since an electromagnetically-induced-transparency （EIT）-like effect can be simulated in a triple-resonant OPA, the output spectra from a triple-resonant OPA with a squeezed vacuum input may simulate the phenomenon of the response of an EIT medium for squeezed states. This scheme can be implemented with present experimental setups.

High-Stability High-Energy Picosecond Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplifier as a Preamplifier in Nd：Glass Petawatt System for Contrast Enhancement

We demonstrate a novel picosecond optical parametric preamplification to generate high-stability, high-energy and high-contrast seed pulses. The 5ps seed pulse is amplified from 60pJ to 300μJ with an 8.6ps/ 3mJ pump laser in a signal stage of short pulse non-collinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification. The total gain is more than 106 and the rms energy stability is under 1.35%. The contrast ratio is higher than 10s within a scale of 20ps before the main pulse. Consequently, the improvement factor of the signal contrast is approximately equal to the gain 106 outside the pump window.

Entanglement of movable mirror and cavity field enhanced by an optical parametric amplifier

A scheme to generate entanglement in a cavity optomechanical system filled with an optical parametric amplifier is proposed. With the help of the optical parametric amplifier, the stationary macroscopic entanglement between the movable mirror and the cavity field can be notably enhanced, and the entanglement increases when the parametric gain increases.Moreover, for a given parametric gain, the degree of entanglement of the cavity optomechanical system increases with increasing input laser power.

Phase matched scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on pump beam deflection

Combined with the optical beam deflection,a novel approach of phase matched broadband scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification(OPCPA)was proposed.For this scheme,there was no superfluous operations to the chirped signal pulse which propagated in a changeless direction straightforward,but the pump beam were deflected in space with time by passing through a KTN crystal,which was applied with varied driving voltage.The theories of phase matching of each chirped signal frequency based on pump beam deflection was analyzed detailedly.And the type-I amplification of chirped signal with 800 nm central wavelength and 20 nm bandwidth pumped by 532 nm in BBO crystal was simulated as a case in point.The simulation results showed that the spectral distribution of chirped signal pulse was almost the same as the initial form,i.e.,there was nearly no narrowing on the amplified spectrum by using of the scanning OPCPA based on pump beam deflection.In addition,the simulations demonstrated that it was worth minimizing the voltage deviation applied to KTN crystal as much as possible for the sake of better waveform,larger bandwidth and higher conversion efficiency of amplified signal pulse in the proposed scanning OPCPA.

Tunable, continuous-wave single-resonant optical parametric oscillator with output coupling for resonant wave

We present a continuous-wave singly-resonant optical parametric oscillator with 1.5% output coupling of the reso- nant signal wave, based on an angle-polished MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate （MgO：PPLN）, pumped by a commercial Nd：YVO4 laser at 1064 nm. The output-coupled optical parametric oscillator delivers a maximum total output power of 4.19 W with 42.8% extraction efficiency, across a tuning range of 1717 nm in the near- and mid-infrared region. This indicates improvements of 1.87 W in output power, 19.1% in extraction efficiency and 213 nm in tuning range exten- sion in comparison with the optical parametric oscillator with no output coupling, while at the expense of increasing the oscillation threshold by a factor of - 2. Moreover, it is confirmed that the finite output coupling also contributes to the reduction of the thermal effects in crystal.

A Mid-IR Optical Parametric Oscillator Pumped by an Actively Q-Switched Ho:YAG Ceramic Laser

We demonstrate a mid-IR ZnGeP2 （ZGP） optical parametric oscillator （OPO） pumped by a dual-end-pumped actively aeoasto-optie Q-switched Ho：YAG ceramic laser. The maximum average output power of 35 W is obtained at a pulse repetition frequency of 20 kHz from the Ho：YAG ceramic laser. Under the maximum incident pump power of Ho：YAG ceramic laser, the maximum output power of 14 W is obtained from the ZGP OPO, corresponding to the slope efficiency of 49.6% with respect to the incident pump power. The wavelength can be tuned from 3.5 μm to 4.2μm （signal）, corresponding to 5.24.1 μm （idler）. The beam quality M2 is less than 2.3 from the ZGP OPO.

Compact and tunable mid-infrared source based on a 2 μm dual-wavelength KTiOPO_4 intracavity optical parametric oscillator

Using a double resonant KTiOPO4 （KTP） intracavity optical parametric oscillator operating at degenerated point of 2 μm, we demonstrate a unique mid-infrared source based on difference frequency generation in GaSe crystal. The output tuning range is 8.42-19.52 μm, and a peak power of 834 W for type-Ⅰ phase matching scheme and 730 W for type-Ⅱ phase matching scheme are achieved. Experimental results show that this oscillator is a good alternative to the generator of a compact and tabletop mid-infrared radiation with a widely tunable range.