Analysis and suppression of parasitic processes in noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers

作者：Bromage J^*; Rothhardt J; Haedrich S; Dorrer C; Jocher C; Demmler S; Limpert J; Tuennermann A; Zuegel J D

来源：Optics Express, 2011, 19(18): 16797-16808.

DOI：10.1364/OE.19.016797

The influence of parasitic processes on the performance of ultra-broadband noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers (NOPA's) is investigated for walk-off and non-walk-off compensating configurations. Experimental results with a white-light-seeded NOPA agree well with numerical simulations. The same model shows that 10% of the output energy of an amplified signal can be transferred into a parasitic second harmonic of the signal. These findings are supported by quantitative measurements on a few-cycle NOPA, where a few percent of the signal energy is converted to its second harmonic in the walk-off compensating case. This effect is reduced by an order of magnitude in the non-walk-off compensating configuration. A detailed study of the phase-matching conditions of the most common nonlinear crystals provides guidelines for designing NOPA systems.

• 出版日期2011-8-29