January 1, 1998 / Vol. 23, No.

1 / OPTICS LETTERS 61

Femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based

on periodically poled KTiOPO4
Tolga Kartaloǧlu, Kahraman G. Köprülü, and Orhan Aytür
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University, TR-06533 Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey

Michael Sundheimer
Department of Physics, Koç University, TR-80860 Istanbul, Turkey

William P. Risk
IBM Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, California 95120

Received July 7, 1997

We report a femtosecond optical parametric oscillator based on a periodically poled KTiOPO4 crystal for which
quasi-phase matching is achieved with a 24-mm poling period. The singly resonant parametric oscillator,
synchronously pumped by a Ti:sapphire laser at a wavelength of 758 nm, generates a signal at 1200 nm and an
idler at 2060 nm. The maximum signal power conversion efficiency of the device is 22% with a pump depletion
of 69%. We tune the signal wavelength over a 200-nm band by changing the cavity length. In addition, pump
wavelength tuning provides output tunability in the 1000– 1235-nm range.  1998 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 190.0190, 190.2620, 190.4970.

Frequency conversion using optical parametric oscil- niobate, permitting room-temperature operation with-
lators (OPO’s) is a widely used technique for extend- out temperature control. The much lower coercive
ing the wavelength range of laser systems. Several field of ,2 kVymm permits successful electric-field
OPO’s have been demonstrated that use a variety poling on samples of at least 1-mm thickness.7 Many
of nonlinear materials and pump sources.1 Phase recent advances have been made in electric-field poling
matching between the interacting OPO fields is tra- of KTP, indicating that periodically poled KTP may
ditionally achieved by use of the natural birefrin- become the material of choice for many frequency
gence of the nonlinear material. In recent years conversion applications.8,9
quasi-phase matching, a technique that relies on peri- In this Letter we report a room-temperature fem-
odic domain inversion inside the nonlinear material, tosecond OPO that is based on a periodically poled KTP
has emerged as a promising alternative to birefrin- (PP KTP) crystal. Our OPO is synchronously pumped
gent phase matching. The domain grating is usu- by a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser operating at a wave-
ally obtained by periodic electric field poling of the length of 758 nm. Quasi-phase matching is achieved
nonlinear material.2 A number of OPO’s based on with a 24-mm poling period in the PP KTP crystal, re-
periodically poled lithium niobate with continuous- sulting in a signal wavelength of 1200 nm and an idler
wave, Q-switched, and short-pulse pumping were re- wavelength of 2060 nm. One can tune the signal out-
cently demonstrated,3 – 5 indicating a great potential put in a 200-nm range by changing the cavity length.
for quasi-phase-matched nonlinear crystals for use in To our knowledge, this is the first reported demonstra-
broadly tunable laser systems. tion of quasi-phase-matched optical parametric oscilla-
The technology for electric-f ield poling of lithium tion with PP KTP.
niobate has quickly matured relative to that of In our experiments we use a z-cut 1-mm-thick
other ferroelectric materials, primarily because of 8-mm-long hydrothermally grown KTP crystal. We
the wide availability of high-quality and inexpen- achieve periodic domain inversion in the crystal by
sive crystal substrates. One disadvantage of using applying an electric field along the z axis (1-mm
periodically poled lithium niobate is that its large dimension) with a 24-mm period electrode.7 The re-
coercive f ield of ,21 kVymm limits the poled crystal sulting domain grating occupies the central 7 mm of
thickness to approximately 0.5 mm. Another signifi- the crystal. The orientation of the grating with re-
cant disadvantage is the presence of photorefrac- spect to the polished crystal surfaces cannot be con-
tive damage. Although the photorefractive damage trolled accurately, and there may be an angle of a few
threshold is reduced in periodically poled lithium degrees between these surfaces and the grating. The
niobate compared with bulk lithium niobate,6 satisfac- polished crystal surfaces do not have any antiref lection
tory operation still requires heating the crystal in a coatings.
temperature-controlled oven. Another material that A mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser provides the pump
has much promise for periodically poled nonlinear op- beam to the OPO at a wavelength of 758 nm. The
tics applications is KTiOPO4 (KTP). KTP has a much pump pulses are 215 fs in duration (approximately
higher photorefractive damage threshold than lithium 1.5 times longer than being transform limited) and
0146-9592/98/010061-03$10.00/0  1998 Optical Society of America
62 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 23, No. 1 / January 1, 1998

have a repetition rate of 76 MHz. We constructed a data. The corresponding idler tuning range is 2000–
ring cavity consisting of four mirrors, as shown in 3000 nm. Figure 3 also shows the output power vari-
Fig. 1. M1 and M2 are 150-mm radius-of-curvature ation as we tune the OPO by changing the cavity
concave, and M3 and M4 are f lat mirrors. M1, M2, length. We use the location of the maximum output
and M4 are high ref lectors at the signal wavelength, power to def ine the zero detuning point for the cav-
and M3 is an R . 72% (measured) output coupler. ity length. The variation of output power with cavity
The PP KTP crystal is positioned at the intracav- length detuning is inf luenced by many factors, such
ity focus between M1 and M2. All beams are po- as the wavelength dependence of the output coupler
larized along the z axis of the crystal to utilize the ref lectivity, the bandwidth of the cavity mirrors, and
large d33 nonlinear coeff icient of KTP. The pump the group-velocity mismatch dependence of the para-
beam is focused with a lens (L) of focal length 75 mm metric gain.11 The output coupler ref lectivity changes
and enters the cavity through M1, which has high-
transmission coatings for this purpose. The lowest-
order transverse mode of the cavity has a 48-mm
waist diameter (calculated), and the focused pump
beam has a 70-mm waist diameter (measured). M3
is placed upon an open-loop piezocontrolled transla-
tion stage with the purpose of adjusting the cavity
length for synchronizing the pump and signal pulses.
The idler beam exits the cavity through M2, which is
transparent sR , 15%d at this wavelength. Various
visible beams resulting from non-phase-matched inter-
actions (frequency-doubled pump and signal, sum of
pump with signal and idler) exit the cavity through M2. Fig. 1. Schematic of the PP KTP OPO. The pump beam
The threshold of the OPO is 150 mW (measured is provided by a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser.
pump power before the lens). At an input pump power
of 650 mW the maximum signal output from M3 is
140 mW, corresponding to a 22% signal power conver-
sion eff iciency and a quantum-limited performance4
(photon conversion eff iciency) of 34%. At this point
the pump depletion is 69%. Figure 2 shows the sig-
nal power conversion eff iciency and pump depletion as
functions of the input pump power.
Ref lection losses incurred by the signal and the
pump beams at the uncoated crystal surfaces are the
most important factors in limiting the performance of
this OPO. The total loss experienced by the pump
at the input (L, M1, and the first crystal surface) is
10%. For the resonant signal beam, surface ref lection
losses per pass through the crystal are 16%. Consid-
ering that this loss is comparable with that from output
coupling, it is expected to play a significant role in in- Fig. 2. Conversion eff iciency (f illed circles) and pump
creasing the threshold and decreasing the conversion depletion (open circles) versus pump power.
efficiency. We experimented with output couplers of
various ref lectivities and found that the lowest ref lec-
tivity available to us (R . 72% at 1200 nm) provides
the highest conversion efficiency. This and the high
pump depletion value suggest that the parametric gain
in the PP KTP crystal is very high.
We can tune the output of the PP KTP OPO over a
200-nm-wide wavelength range by changing the cavity
length. This effect occurs because the cavity round-
trip time for the signal pulse depends on wavelength
through the contribution of the group velocity inside
the crystal.10 Detuning the cavity length by moving
one of the cavity mirrors (M3) changes the wavelength
of the signal pulses that are synchronous with the
pump pulses.
Figure 3 shows the measured signal wavelength as Fig. 3. Measured OPO output wavelength (filled circles)
a function of cavity length detuning for a f ixed pump and power (open circles) versus cavity length detuning.
wavelength of 758 nm. The theoretical tuning curve, The solid curve is a calculated theoretical curve based on
based on the calculated cavity length dependence of the equating the wavelength-dependent signal pulse round-trip
signal wavelength, is in excellent agreement with the time to the pump pulse period.
 January 1, 1998 / Vol. 23, No. 1 / OPTICS LETTERS 63

in the crystal.11,12 The beam prof ile of the signal out-

put is measured with a beam prof iler to be nearly
Gaussian.
It is also possible to tune the PP KTP OPO by vary-
ing the wavelength of the pump beam. Experimen-
tally, we were able to demonstrate tunability in the
1000–1235-nm range, being limited by the ref lectiv-
ity bandwidth of our mirrors and ref lection losses from
the crystal surfaces. Figure 5 shows the experimen-
tal pump tuning data together with calculated curves
for 24- and 25-mm period domain gratings. We at-
tribute the deviation of the data from the calculated
24-mm curve partly to the uncertainty in the orienta-
tion of the grating and partly to the inaccuracy of the
dispersion relations for KTP.13
In conclusion, we have demonstrated a Ti:sapphire-
laser-pumped femtosecond PP KTP OPO operating in
the 1000–1235-nm wavelength range. The conversion
Fig. 4. Spectra of the signal output for cavity detunings of
(a) 288 mm, ( b) 240 mm, (c) 212 mm, and (d) 0 mm. efficiency of the OPO is high despite the presence
of high cavity losses other than output coupling. We
achieved a wide tunability range by changing the cavity
length and the pump wavelength. In particular, cav-
ity length tuning promises to be a powerful technique
for obtaining rapid tunability in femtosecond OPO’s.
This research was supported in part by the Turkish
Scientific and Technical Research Council (Tubitak)
under grant EEEAG-118.

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