Noncritically phase-matched second-harmonic generation and optical parametric amplification in a lithium triborate crystal

We evaluate the potential of lithium triborate (LBO) temperature-tuned to achieve type-I noncritical phase matching, for picosecond high-power second-harmonic generation (SHG) and tunable optical parametric amplification (OPA). Pumped by 35 ps, 1.064 μm laser pulses, a conversion efficiency of 65% was obtained from SHG. The output of OPA, pumped by 0.532 μm was tunable from 0.75 to 1.8 μm with an efficiency better than 20%.