Single-mode, singly resonant, pulsed periodically poled lithium niobate optical parametric oscillator

We report single longitudinal mode operation of a pulsed Nd:YAG pumped periodically poled lithium niobate optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The combination of a prism and an etalon provides both coarse and fine spectral resolution, thereby eliminating parasitic resonant oscillation of cascaded signal wavelengths, idler wavelengths, and adjacent longitudinal modes of the signal field. Optical bandwidths of less than 300 MHz have been obtained at signal wavelengths between 1.47 and 1.59 mum. In comparison with broadband operation, the single-mode OPO shows only a 9% reduction in pump depletion with a negligible reduction in extraction efficiency.