4.0 μm, high repetition rate periodically poled magnesium-oxide-doped lithium niobate mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator pumped by steep leading edge pulsed fiber laser.

A high repetition rate optical parametric oscillator (OPO) generating an idler laser with a wavelength as long as 4.0 μm at 200 and 400 kHz was demonstrated in this paper. The OPO was pumped by a master oscillator power amplifier structure fiber laser with excellent characteristics. The pump pulse from the fiber laser had a steep leading edge, which was theoretically proved to improve the OPO's performance, compared with the Gaussian pump pulse. A homemade periodically poled magnesium-oxide-doped lithium niobate crystal with a grating period of 29 μm was employed in our experiment. By optimizing the resonator, 2.75 and 1.67 W idler lasers were finally achieved at repetition rates as high as 200 and 400 kHz, respectively, with a wavelength as long as 4.0 μm. The conversion efficiencies were 12.03% and 7.31%, respectively.