Continuous-wave mode-locked singly resonant optical parametric oscillator synchronously pumped by a laser-diode-pumped Nd:YLF laser.

We describe a continuous-wave synchronously pumped, singly resonant, KTP optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The pump source is a frequency-doubled additive-pulse mode-locked Nd:YLF laser pumped by a laser diode. An average pump power threshold of 61 mW is observed for the OPO. At ~3.7 times threshold, the pump depletion is 79%, and the oscillator converts 16% of the pump into external signal output in bandwidth-limited picosecond pulses with 42 mW of average power. The OPO has been tuned over the range of 1.002-1.096 microm.