Analysis of parametric fluorescence amplified in a noncollinear optical parametric amplifier pumped by the second harmonic of a femtosecond Yb:KGW laser

T. Stanislauskas; I. Balčiūnas; V. Tamuliene; R. Budriūnas; A. Varanavičius

doi:10.3952/physics.v56i1.3271

T. Stanislauskas
I. Balčiūnas
V. Tamuliene
R. Budriūnas
A. Varanavičius

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3952/physics.v56i1.3271

Keywords: parametric fluorescence, optical parametric amplifier, contrast

Abstract

We present the results of theoretical and experimental investigation of amplified parametric fluorescence (APF) produced in a high-gain BBO-based femtosecond noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (OPA) pumped at 515 nm. Differences of APF levels in Poynting vector walk-off-compensating and tangential phase-matching amplification geometries are examined. APF suppression due to the presence of a seed pulse in the OPA is measured and is found to be around 6 times in typical OPA operating conditions when pump-to-signal conversion efficiency is 11.5%.