OPO OPA OPCPA LBO Nonlinear Crystals

Lithium triborate (LiB3O5) LBO is an excellent non-linear optics crystal, which has a wide transparency range, high damage threshold, moderately high nonlinear coupling and desirable chemical and mechanical properties. LBO crystals have been widely used in second harmonic generation (SHG), for example of Nd:YAG lasers (1064 nm 532 nm). LBO can be both critically and non-critically phase-matched.

Thanks to its large spectral transmission range as well as noncritical phase matching (NCPM) in the near IR region, LBO crystals have been applied in non-linear optical applications like OPO, OPA, OPCPA and other. Since its broad gain bandwidth overlaps with Ti:Sapphire in 800 nm range, ultra-high power and high contrast laser systems have been built based on the mixed CPA/OPCPA plan.

Features

• Wide transmission region from 160 nm to 2600nm
• Large effective second-harmonic-generation (SHG) coefficient (about three times that of KDP)
• Good mechanical and physical properties
• High damage threshold of 18.9 GW/cm2 for a 1.3 ns laser at 1053 nm
• Both Type I and II NCPM in a wide wavelength range is possible
• Wide acceptance angle and small walk-off
• High optical homogeneity with n≈10-6/cm
• Spectral NCPM near 1300 nm

Applications

• Frequency doubling and tripling of Nd:YAG and Nd:YLF lasers.
• SHG and THG for middle and high power Nd: lasers at 1064 nm for medical, industrial and military applications
• SHG and THG of high power Nd: lasers at 1342 nm & 1319 nm for red and blue laser
• Optical parametric amplifiers (OPA) and oscillators (OPO) pumped by Excimer lasers and harmonics of Nd:YAG lasers.
• Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) in ultrafast pulse system

Chemical and Physical Properties

Linear Optical Properties