A new material for single crystal modulators: BBO

Abstract

Single crystal photo-elastic modulators (SCPEM) are based on a single piezo-electric crystal which is electrically excited on a resonance frequency such that the resulting resonant oscillation causes a modulated artificial birefringence due to the photo-elastic effect. Polarized light experience in such a crystal a strong modulation of polarization, which, in connection with a polarizer, can be used for Q-switching of lasers with pulse repetition frequencies in the range of 100-1000 kHz. A particularly advantageous configuration is possible with crystals from the symmetry class 3m. Besides LiTaO 3 and LiNbO 3 , both already well explored as SCPEM-materials, we introduce now BBO, which offers a very low absorption in the near infrared region and is therefore particularly suited for Q-switching of solid state lasers. We demonstrate first results of such a BBO-modulator with the dimensions 8.6 x 4.05 x 4.5mm in x-, y-, z-direction, which offers a useful resonance and polarization modulation at 131.9 kHz. Since the piezo-electric effect is small, the voltage amplitude for achieving Q-switching for an Nd:YAG-laser is expected to be in the range of 100V. Nevertheless it is a simple and robust device to achieve Q-switching with a high fixed repetition rate for high power solid state lasers.