Efficient 550-600-nm tunable laser based on noncritically phase-matched frequency doubling of room-temperature LiF:F2- in lithium triborate

S Maile Giffin; Glenn W Baxter; Iain T McKinnie; Valerii V Ter-Mikirtychev

doi:10.1364/ao.41.004331

Efficient 550-600-nm tunable laser based on noncritically phase-matched frequency doubling of room-temperature LiF:F2- in lithium triborate

Appl Opt. 2002 Jul 20;41(21):4331-5. doi: 10.1364/ao.41.004331.

Authors

S Maile Giffin¹, Glenn W Baxter, Iain T McKinnie, Valerii V Ter-Mikirtychev

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. mgiffin@oceanit.com

PMID: 12148761
DOI: 10.1364/ao.41.004331

Abstract

We report on efficient conversion of a 1064-nm Nd:YAG laser to tunable visible light. The conversion scheme uses noncritically phase-matched second-harmonic generation of a pulsed Nd:YAG-pumped LiF:F2- laser in lithium triborate. Optimization yields 42% LiF:F2- laser efficiency and 56% frequency-doubling efficiency, providing >20% conversion from 1064 nm to broadly tunable visible output. A dramatic sensitivity of laser efficiency to pump pulse duration is recorded, with a fundamental efficiency improvement of over 30-fold measured for an increase in pump pulse duration from 5 to 34 ns.