Spatial Beam Self-Cleaning in Second-Harmonic Generation

Sci Rep. 2020 Apr 29;10(1):7204. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-64080-7.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the spatial self-cleaning of a highly multimode optical beam, in the process of second-harmonic generation in a quadratic nonlinear potassium titanyl phosphate crystal. As the beam energy grows larger, the output beam from the crystal evolves from a highly speckled intensity pattern into a single, bell-shaped spot, sitting on a low energy background. We demonstrate that quadratic beam cleanup is accompanied by significant self-focusing of the fundamental beam, for both positive and negative signs of the linear phase mismatch close to the phase-matching condition.