Picosecond Mid-Infrared 3.8 μm MgO:PPLN Optical Parametric Oscillator Laser with High Peak Power

In this study, a compact, picosecond, mid-infrared 3.8 μm MgO:PPLN optical parametric oscillator (OPO) laser output with high peak power is realized using a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) 1 μm solid-state laser seeded by a picosecond fiber laser as the pump source. The pump source was a 50 MHz and 10 ps fiber seed source. After AOM pulse selection and two-stage solid-state amplification, a 1,064 nm laser output with a repetition frequency of 1–2 MHz, pulse width of 9.5 ps, and a maximum average power of 20 W was achieved. Furthermore, a compact short cavity with a unsynchronized pump is adopted through the design of an OPO cavity structure. When the injection pump power was 15 W and the repetition frequency was 1 MHz, the average output power of idler light was 1.19 W, and the corresponding peak power was 119 kW. The optical conversion efficiency was 7.93%. When the repetition frequency was increased to 2 MHz, the average output power of idler light was 1.63 W, the corresponding peak power was 81.5 kW, and the optical conversion efficiency was 10.87%. At the same time, the output wavelength was measured at 3,806 nm, and the beam quality was MX2 = 3.21 and MY2 = 3.34.