Design of a High Power Continuous Source of Broadband Down-Converted Light

Abstract

We present the design and experimental proof of principle of a low threshold optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that continuously oscillates over a large bandwidth allowed by phase matching. The large oscillation bandwidth is achieved with a selective two-photon loss that suppresses the inherent mode competition, which tends to narrow the bandwidth in conventional OPOs. Our design performs pairwise mode-locking of many frequency pairs, in direct equivalence to passive mode-locking of ultrashort pulsed lasers. The ability to obtain high powers of continuous \textit{and} broadband down-converted light enables the optimal exploitation of the correlations within the down-converted spectrum, thereby strongly affecting two-photon interactions even at classically high power levels, and opening new venues for applications such as two-photon spectroscopy and microscopy and optical spread spectrum communication.