Abstract

Bismuth triborate, BiB₃O₆ (BIBO), is a nonlinear material with unique optical properties for frequency conversion in the UV, visible, and near-infrared [1]. However, to our knowledge, BIBO has not been previously deployed in ultrafast OPOs pumped directly by Ti:sapphire. For optical parametric generation pumped at 800 nm, type (e→o+o) phase-matching with wide tuning in optical xz-plane is available, with d_eff~2.9 pm/V. Figure 1 presents the phase-matching behavior, showing the significantly broad bandwidth for a fixed phase matching angle ~11.4º. As a result, the OPO may be tuned within 1.2-1.6 µm without the need for angular phase-matching. Moreover, the group velocity mismatch (GVM) and the group velocity dispersion (GVD) vanish near degeneracy, making BIBO an excellent candidate for broadband parametric generation [2] and internal frequency-doubling of a near-IR fs OPO [3].

© 2011 Optical Society of America