Picosecond ultraviolet optical parametric generation using a type-II phase-matched lithium triborate crystal for an injection seed of VUV lasers

Output performance of a type-II phase-matched optical parametric generator using lithium triborate pumped at 266 nm is investigated. The optical parametric generator is designed to produce a narrow linewidth signal with good spatial quality at 326.7 nm for application to injection seeding of a vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) plasma laser. A linewidth of less than 0.1 nm and a beam divergence of 2/spl times/ diffraction limit have been achieved without any diffractive optics.