CAN: Optical Parametric Oscillator

The National Physical Laboratory requirement is for the supply of a laser source continuously tunable over the 350-1000 nm wavelength range. The source is to be used to calibrate single-photon detectors (SPDs) in NPL's new traceable calibration facility.

The source is required to be pulsed at a variable repetition rate.

The pulse jitter must be short enough to allow timing jitter measurements of SPDs.

The pulse width must be short enough to enable measurement of the detection profiles of gated detectors.

The pulse-to-pulse energy variability must be low enough so that the intensity of individual pulses do not need to be measured, and the mean value represents a very good approximation to the energy of any individual pulse.

The technologies likely to fulfil these requirements are Optical Parametric Oscillators (OPOs) with a Second Harmonic Generator (SHG) module and a stable pump laser to allow a low pulse-to-pulse amplitude uncertainty, or an Optical Parametric Amplifier (OPA) with similar SHG and stable pump laser requirement.

The 350-1000 nm wavelength tuning range is required to be achieved without change of optics or re-alignment. A pulse repetition rate between 1 MHz and 100 kHz is required (10 MHz-100 kHz is desirable). The operational temperature range is at least from 15 C to 30 C.