Femtosecond and picosecond fiber-feedback OPOs

Summary form only given. Synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) are attractive sources of broadly wavelength-tunable ultrashort pulses as required for many applications, e.g. RGB display systems. We present a novel type of synchronously pumped OPO, which is based on feedback through a single-mode fiber in combination with a very high parametric gain and strong output coupling. This concept leads to compact, stable and powerful systems in the femtosecond and picosecond regime. We present a picosecond fiber-feedback OPO generating up to 4.4 W of average signal power in /spl ap/10-ps pulses tunable from 1485-1582 nm. We also demonstrate a femtosecond fiber-feedback OPO that generates up to 2.7 W average signal power tunable from 1429-1473 nm in 700-900 fs pulses. In contrast to many other OPOs in this pulse duration regime, this system is very insensitive against drifts of the OPO cavity length and does not require an active stabilization. Because of the high parametric gain, fiber-feedback OPOs are also unusually insensitive against intracavity losses. Even at low repetition rates, the setup is very compact since most of the resonator feedback path consists of the fiber.