1.
Appl Opt
; 48(13): 2600-6, 2009 May 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19412221
ABSTRACT
The demonstration of continuous wave intracavity difference-frequency generation in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) is presented. A cavity for pump laser enhancement is constructed around a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal, and the cavity length is locked to the frequency of the pump laser using the Pound-Drever-Hall technique, producing a gain of 12 in the resultant idler power compared to the single-pass case. A widely tunable single-mode 3.3 microm idler beam with a power of nearly 10 mW is available for direct absorption spectroscopy. The pump-enhancement method demonstrated here should be readily scalable to produce hundreds of milliwatts of mid-IR light by using higher power signal and pump lasers.