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Concept
Optical parametric amplifier
Summary
An optical parametric amplifier, abbreviated OPA, is a laser light source that emits light of variable wavelengths by an optical parametric amplification process. It is essentially the same as an optical parametric oscillator, but without the optical cavity (i.e., the light beams pass through the apparatus just once or twice, rather than many many times).
Spontaneous parametric down conversion
Optical parametric generation (OPG) (also called "optical parametric fluorescence", or "spontaneous parametric down conversion") often precedes optical parametric amplification.
In optical parametric generation, the input is one light beam of frequency ωp, and the output is two light beams of lower frequencies ωs and ωi, with the requirement ωp=ωs+ωi. These two lower-frequency beams are called the "signal" and "idler", respectively.
This light emission is based on the nonlinear optical principle. The photon of an incident laser pulse (pump) is, by a nonlinear optical crystal, divided into two lower-energy photons. The wavelengths of the signal and the idler are determined by the phase matching condition, which is changed, e.g. by temperature or, in bulk optics, by the angle between the incident pump laser ray and the optical axes of the crystal. The wavelengths of the signal and the idler photons can, therefore, be tuned by changing the phase matching condition.
The output beams in optical parametric generation are usually relatively weak and have relatively spread-out direction and frequency. This problem is solved by using optical parametric amplification (OPA), also called difference frequency generation, as a second stage after the OPG.
In an OPA, the input is two light beams, of frequency ωp and ωs. The OPA will make the pump beam (ωp) weaker, and amplify the signal beam (ωs), and also create a new, so-called idler beam at the frequency ωi with ωp=ωs+ωi.
In the OPA, the pump and idler photons usually travel collinearly through a nonlinear optical crystal. Phase matching is required for the process to work well.
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