High-power subnanosecond optical parameter oscillator pumped by a laser with a stimulated Brillouin scattering compressor

An investigation was made of a superradiant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on KDP crystals pumped by the second harmonic of a single-pulse YAG:Nd³⁺ laser with a stimulated Brillouin scattering compressor (τ = 0.8 nsec). The energy efficiency of the two-crystal OPO reached 27%. The minimum duration of the pulses generated by linear operation of the OPO was 200 psec. The OPO emission wavelength was continuously tunable between 0.9 and 1.3 µ by matched rotation of the crystals. The width of the emission spectrum was ~10 cm^–1 in the nondegenerate operation.