We report measurements of all the material constants necessary to fully characterize barium borate as a nonlinear optical material. All data was taken on crystals supplied by Professor Chuangtien Chen, Fuzhou, People’s Republic of China. We have determined the crystal structure, the optical absorption, the refractive indices from the UV to the near IR, the thermo-optic coefficients, the nonlinear optical or coefficients, the resistance to laser damage, the elastic constants, the thermal expansion, thermal conductivity and dielectric constants, and the fracture toughness. This data is used to evaluate barium borate for a variety of applications. We find that, in general, barium borate has a low acceptance angle, and that despite its higher optical nonlinearity, it is therefore not significantly more efficient than other commonly available materials, except in the UV below 250 nm. On the other hand, it has a high damage threshold, it is physically robust, it has good UV and IR transparency, and it has excellent average power capability. It permits deep UV generation, and has great potential for generating tunable visible and IR light as an optical parametric amplifier.
Deuterated L-arginine phosphate (d-LAP) is a highly transparent monoclinic crystal with attractive properties for efficient frequency conversion. It is grown easily from aqueous solution, and it is phase matchable for all nonlinear processes where KDP is phasematchable. Over most of its usable frequency range, it is substantially more efficient than KDP. Crystals grown in large sizes (100 cm') have a high damage threshold, excellent optical quality, are less hygroscopic than KDP, and are easily fabricated into nonlinear devices. Deuterated LAP is attractive for harmonic generation of Nd lasers and for work in the ultraviolet down to about 250 nm.
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