Short Course 1: Practical Optical Parametric Oscillators

Summary form only given. This course provides an overview of optical parametric oscillator (OPO) device technology from basic operation principles to advanced architectures. The course will begin with a description of the fundamental concepts in nonlinear frequency conversion, followed by a discussion of the critical design issues for OPO devices -and then a review of the current status of OPO technology. The discussion will encompass OPO systems operating in all time-scales, from the continuous-wave (cw) to the ultrafast femtosecond regime.