Tunable medium infrared generation in silver thiogallate (AgGaS2) by down-conversion of flash-pumped dye-laser radiation

The outputs of flash-lamp pumped rhodamine 6G and rhodamine B lasers have been mixed in a AgGaS
2
crystal. The generated difference frequency radiation has been tuned from 8.7 to 11.6 μm. Measurements of laser-induced damage of AgGaS
2
have been made in the region of 600 nm which show a rapid fall in threshold with decreasing wavelength.