Open AccessEnhanced spectral broadening in an optical parametric oscillator based on a PPLN crystal
Author(s) -
Jiaxing Heng,
Pei Liu,
Zhaowei Zhang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.392169
Subject(s) - optical parametric oscillator , optics , bandwidth (computing) , ultrashort pulse , materials science , optical coherence tomography , nonlinear optics , wavelength , optical parametric amplifier , parametric statistics , laser , optoelectronics , physics , optical amplifier , computer science , telecommunications , statistics , mathematics
We report a chirped-pulse optical parametric oscillator (OPO) generating light pulses with an instantaneous-bandwidth much wider than the parametric gain-bandwidth of nonlinear crystals. Our numerical simulations show that a relatively high residual second-order-dispersion within the OPO cavity is required in order to achieve the maximum signal-bandwidth from an OPO system. Based on this principle, we constructed an OPO using a 3-mm-long PPLN crystal, which produced a signal wave with an instantaneous-bandwidth of 20 THz (at -20 dB) covering 1447-1600 nm, roughly twice as much as the phase-matching bandwidth of the nonlinear crystal. This scheme represents a promising technical route for generating high-repetition-rate, ultrashort optical pulses with a wide bandwidth at various wavelengths, which may benefit many applications, including optical coherence tomography, pulse synthesis and spectroscopy.