Temperature-insensitive frequency tripling for generating high-average power UV lasers.

Aimed for generating high-average power ultraviolet (UV) lasers via third-harmonic generation (THG) consisting of frequency doubling and tripling stages, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate a novel frequency tripling scheme capable of supporting temperature-insensitive phase-matching (PM). Two cascaded tripling crystals, with opposite signs of the temperature derivation of phase-mismatch, are proposed and theoretically studied for improving the temperature-acceptance of PM. The proof-of-principle tripling experiment using two crystals of LBO and BBO shows that the temperature acceptance can be ~1.5 times larger than that of using a single tripling crystal. In addition, the phase shift caused by air dispersion, along with its influence on the temperature-insensitive PM, are also discussed. To illustrate the potential applications of proposed two-crystal tripling design in the high-average-power regime, full numerical simulations for the tripling process, are implemented based on the realistic crystals. The demonstrated two-crystal tripling scheme may provide a promising route to high-average-power THG in the UV region.