Compact Picosecond Mid-Ir Ppln Opo With Controllable Peak Powers

We report a high-repetition-rate, compact, mid-infrared picosecond (ps) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN). The OPO is synchronously pumped by an ytterbium-doped-fibre (YDF) master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA) system, seeded by a 1040-nm gain-switched laser diode (GSLD). Under continuous-wave (cw) pulsed operation, at a 1.5-GHz repetition rate and 14-Wpump power, an idler average power of 2.4 W (similar to 30 W peak power) was achieved, with an idler wavelength tunability of 2260-3573 nm. Through the addition of an electro-optic modulator (EOM) to the MOPA system, acting as a time gate to suppress a variable number of pulses per 1 mu s, a quasi-cw pumping regime was realized, allowing burst-mode operation of the OPO at a 1-MHz inter-burst repetition rate. By varying the burst window time with the EOM, controllable idler peak powers of up to 1.2 kW were then realized. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.