APL Photonics (Sep 2020)

Second-harmonic generation of temporally low-coherence light

  • Xiaohui Zhao,
  • Lailin Ji,
  • Dong Liu,
  • Yanqi Gao,
  • Daxing Rao,
  • Yong Cui,
  • Wei Feng,
  • Fujian Li,
  • Haitao Shi,
  • Chong Shan,
  • WeiXin Ma,
  • Zhan Sui

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0022307
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 9
pp. 091301 – 091301-6

Abstract

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In this Letter, we study the second-harmonic (SH) generation of temporally low-coherence light using the statistical optics method. By introducing the statistical characteristics of low-coherence light into the nonlinear coupled wave equation, we predict the self-convolution relationship between the power spectral density of the second-harmonic and that of the fundamental wave and demonstrate it in experiments. The effects of phase matching and group velocity matching on the second-harmonic bandwidth and conversion efficiency are analyzed, which is beneficial to improve the efficiency of low-coherent SH light. Combining the statistics optics and nonlinear optics, our research provides a suitable mathematical model for the study of nonlinear frequency conversion processes of temporally low-coherence light. Due to its statistical characteristics and temporal incoherence, low-coherence SH light would have further applications in uniform illumination, quantum optics, metrology, and so on.