Pump Tunable Mirrorless OPO: an Innovative Concept for Future Space IPDA Emitters - Institut d'Optique Graduate School
Conference Papers Year : 2023

Pump Tunable Mirrorless OPO: an Innovative Concept for Future Space IPDA Emitters

Abstract

A highly efficient mirrorless OPO tunable in the mid-infrared around 2 µm has been developed and characterized in an original pumping configuration comprising a tunable high power hybrid Ytterbium laser MOPA (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier) in the nanosecond regime. The hybrid pump laser is based on a fiber laser seeder continuously tunable over several GHz at 1030 nm, which is shaped in the time domain with acousto-optic modulators (AOM), and power amplified in a dual stage Ytterbium doped fiber amplifiers, followed by two Yb:YAG bulk amplifiers. The pump delivers up to 3.5 mJ of energy within narrowband 15 ns pulses with a 5 kHz repetition rate. The output was focused into Periodically Poled KTP (PPKTP) crystals with a quasi-Phase Matching (QPM) period of 580 nm, producing Backward Optical Parametric Oscillation (BWOPO), with a forward signal wave at 1981 nm and a backward traveling idler at 2145 nm. We report significant optical to optical efficiencies exceeding 70 % depending on crystal length and input power. As theoretically expected, the forward wave could be continuously tuned over 10 GHz following the pump frequency sweep, while the backward wave remains almost stable, both being free from mode hops. These properties obtained from an optical arrangement without free-space cavities are attractive for future space Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) Lidar applications, which require robust and efficient tunable frequency converters in the mid-infrared.
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Dates and versions

hal-03853052 , version 1 (15-11-2022)

Identifiers

Cite

Kjell Martin Mølster, Marie Guionie, Patrick Mutter, Jean-Baptiste Dherbecourt, Jean-Michel Melkonian, et al.. Pump Tunable Mirrorless OPO: an Innovative Concept for Future Space IPDA Emitters. International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022, Oct 2022, Dubrovnik, Croatia. pp.127772V, ⟨10.1117/12.2690306⟩. ⟨hal-03853052⟩
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