Abstract

Many spectroscopic applications of pulsed optical parametric oscillator (OPO) devices require narrow optical bandwidth and continuous tunability.[1] Narrowband injection seeding is one way to control these properties, as in our studies of OPOs based on β-barium borate (BBO) using either dye lasers seeding linear cavities[1,2] or external-cavity diode lasers (ECDLs) seeding ring cavities.[2,3] Either way, our injection-seeded OPO cavity can be operated passively, with the cavity length not varied as the seed frequency is scanned, if the cavity is misaligned to reduce its effective finesse.

© 1996 Optical Society of America