High-Efficiency Optical Parametric Oscillator Based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Pulse Shaping

We present an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) that uses a pump pulse shape tailored by stimulated Brillouin scattering. The theoretical analysis is carried out for comparison between Gaussian pump and the step function pulse pump. The steep leading edge of the pulse helps minimize the buildup time of the OPO when applied to step function pulse. The study then focuses on obtaining step function pulse through stimulated Brillouin scattering pulse compression. With this control of the pump pulse's temporal shape, the experimental OPO energy conversion efficiency is 34.3%. Compared with an OPO pumped by a Gaussian-shaped pulse, the oscillation threshold is reduced and the energy conversion efficiency is improved by around 10%.