An optical frequency mixing module is described that comprises a nonlinear medium for frequency mixing the photons of one or more input optical fields to generate an output optical field; a nonlinear medium tuner for automatically phase matching the nonlinear medium to the one or more input optical fields to select the wavelength of the output optical field generated by the nonlinear medium; and a first direction correcting optic. The position of the first direction correcting optic relative to the nonlinear medium is dependent upon the selected wavelength of the output optical field and therefore ensures that the position and angle of propagation of this field remains constant and independent of its wavelength of. The optical frequency mixing modules therefore provides a means for automatically selecting the wavelength of the output field with no deviation being imparted onto the position or angle of propagation of the output field.

The present invention relates to a device for generating laser radiation.

A problem addressed by the present invention is that of specifying a device for generating laser radiation using a nonlinear crystal, which device has a simple construction and low optical losses.

The device according to the invention comprises an optical amplifier having an active zone, wherein the optical amplifier has a front facet and a rear facet, between which the active zone extends; and a resonator having a first resonator element and a second resonator element, between which the optical amplifier extends, wherein the first resonator element is arranged on a side of the active zone facing away from the front facet and the second resonator element is arranged on a side of the active zone facing the front facet, and wherein the second resonator element comprises a nonlinear crystal having periodic poling.

With a wavelength conversion device based on a nonlinear optical effect, when arrayed waveguides including an intended nonlinear waveguide are fabricated, unwanted slab waveguides are inevitably formed. The slab waveguides can cause an erroneous measurement in the selection of a waveguide having desired characteristics from the arrayed waveguides. The erroneous measurement can lead to redoing steps for fabricating the wavelength conversion device and a decrease in the yield and inhibit the evaluation of the characteristics in selection of the waveguide and the subsequent fabrication of the wavelength conversion device from being efficiently performed. A wavelength conversion device according to the present invention includes a plurality of waveguides formed on a substrate, and a plurality of slab waveguides that are arranged substantially in parallel with and spaced apart from the plurality of waveguides, and each of the slab waveguides has a grating structure that reflects light of a particular wavelength.

A system for frequency conversion, comprises a laser source and a harmonic generation crystal. The laser source is configured to produce optical pulse energy of less than 100 μJ. The harmonic generation crystal comprises a structure characterized by a nonlinear susceptibility, and a crystal grating period which adiabatically varies along the longitudinal direction in a manner that the crystal grating period is inversely proportional to a crystal grating function of a coordinate z measured along the longitudinal direction.

A system for frequency conversion, comprises a laser source and a harmonic generation crystal. The laser source is configured to produce optical pulse energy of less than 100 μJ. The harmonic generation crystal comprises a structure characterized by a nonlinear susceptibility, and a crystal grating period which adiabatically varies along the longitudinal direction in a manner that the crystal grating period is inversely proportional to a crystal grating function of a coordinate z measured along the longitudinal direction.

The invention relates to a method for producing waveguides (201) from a material (202) of the KTP family comprising the following method steps: b) treating the material (202) in such a way that a periodic poling of the material (202) is achieved, c) treating the material (202) in a molten salt bath (309c), which contains rubidium ions, characterized in that the molten salt bath (309c) which contains rubidium ions in step c) satisfies the following boundary conditions: the mole fraction of rubidium nitrate (RbNO.sub.3) in the melt lies in the range of 86-90 mol % at the beginning of the treatment, the mole fraction of potassium nitrate (KNO.sub.3) in the melt lies in the range of 10-12 mol % at the beginning of the treatment, the mole fraction of barium nitrate (Ba(NO.sub.3).sub.2) in the melt lies in the range of 0.5-1 mol % at the beginning of the treatment, the temperature of the melt lies in the range of 357-363° C. during the treatment. Thus the problem is solved, when reversing the known method steps, of achieving substantially identical diffusion depths of the ions during the ion exchange in order to produce periodically poled waveguides as free of corrugation as possible.

A wavelength conversion system including: A. a first nonlinear optical crystal to which first pulsed laser light having a first polarization state and a first wavelength and second pulsed laser light having a second polarization state and a second wavelength are inputted and which is configured to output in response to the input the second pulsed laser light and first sum frequency light having the second polarization state and a third wavelength produced by sum frequency mixing of the first wavelength with the second wavelength; and B. a second nonlinear optical crystal to which the first sum frequency light and the second pulsed laser light outputted from the first nonlinear optical crystal are inputted and which is configured to output in response to the input third pulsed laser light having a fourth wavelength.

A wavelength conversion system comprising a transport system for a laser beam comprising: a circular polarization laser beam; an articulated arm comprising a mirror at each of its joints, arranged at 45° with respect to said laser beam; each of said mirrors having a phase shift between the reflected components of less than 10°; means for converting said laser beam from circular polarization to linear polarization and providing a linear polarization output laser beam; a non-linear converter for converting the wavelength of said output laser beam to linear polarization.

Apparatus and methods for generating mid-IR frequency combs using intra-pulse DFG. A mode-locked pulse generation laser generates near-IR pulses which are amplified. The amplified pulses are spectrally broadened by a nonlinear element, for example a normal dispersion highly nonlinear fiber (ND-HNLF) to generate broadened pulses. The nonlinear spectral broadening element is a transparent dielectric material having a cubic nonlinear response. Broadened pulses are temporally compressed to generate short, high-power pulses which few-cycle conditioned pulses which are ready for the intrapulse DFG process. The DFG block generates a mid-IR comb by difference frequency generation. It might comprise an orientation patterned GaP (OP-GaP) crystal or a poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal.

An optical component for a broadband radiation source device, the optical component configured for generating a broadband output upon receiving pump radiation and including: a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF); and a gas mixture filling the HC-PCF, wherein the gas mixture includes a mixture of at least one first gas configured for the generation of the broadband radiation and at least one second gas including or consisting of helium.