Abstract

Periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) allows the utilisation of effective non-linear coefficients much larger than those generally available in birefringently phase-matched materials making it attractive for use in OPOs directly pumped by laser diodes. A sub-100mW threshold, signal and idler resonant, degenerate OPO pumped by a commercial 980nm diode MOPA device has been demonstrated using this material [1]. Where the signal and idler fields have the same polarisation, as is the case in PPLN, non-degenerate operation is desirable to allow frequency-stabilised signal/idler mode pair generation. The results presented here describe a non-degenerate PPLN OPO diode pumped in the 800nm spectral region.

© 1998 IEEE