Mid wave IR high average power OPO and OPA using CSP

CdSiP2 (CSP) is a nonlinear optical chalcopyrite semiconductor developed as a wider-band-gap analog of ZnGeP2 (ZGP) to enable mid-infrared generation. Two laser architectures were explored to pump CSP crystals at 2 microns. The first was a ring OPO with two CSP crystals that produced 27 W of average power, demonstrating the viability of CSP as a material capable of producing high average power output. The second architecture was an OPO seeded OPA train that was used to directly compare the thermal lenses generated by pumping either CSP or ZGP with high average power 2 micron light. The CSP crystals demonstrated significantly less thermal lensing than the ZGP crystals.