Narrowband tunability of a pulsed optical parametric oscillator pumped by a low-cost multimode pump laser

Summary form only given. Our modular periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) OPO system uses an intensity-dip control scheme to lock the length of the OPO ring cavity to continuous-wave single-mode seed radiation from a 1.55 /spl mu/m tunable diode laser. Previously, the system was pumped at 1.064 /spl mu/m by a high-performance, single-mode pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Its signal and idler outputs were shown spectroscopically to be continuously tunable with single-mode optical bandwidth and good beam quality. We now report a less expensive, more compact variant of that PPLN OPO design which still provides narrowband, single-mode tunability of its signal output radiation. With our new, less elaborate PPLN OPO design, we show that it is possible to employ a multimode pump laser and still attain single-mode tunability of OPO signal or idler radiation.